A Blessing in Disguise
by kath-lee15
Summary: Lucas hasn't seen her in six years when suddenly he gets the awful news, she's dead. But that's not all, on top of that he has to deal with a surprising discovery. How will he handle it? will he let his despair rule him or is he going to step up.
1. Chapter 1

-New York in the summer, you couldn't get much better than that, Lucas thought looking at the city from his apartment window. He had been living in New York for over two years now. At first it was only periodical visits to his publisher and agents but eventually he had gotten himself an apartment, in case of emergency he had told himself, well that was at first, ultimately he had just ended up living there, and had loved every single minute of it. He was still close to his family and friends, he tried to go to Tree Hill as often as he could to see them, but they had all grown up now, they didn't need each other as much as they did then, he figured it was just normal that they had drifted apart like they did.

-He was about to get out to go grocery shopping when the doorbell rang. He opened the door to find a woman he didn't know looking up at him questionably.

-"Yeah?" He asked wondering who she was.

-"Lucas Scott?" She asked looking at her notes for confirmation.

-"Yeah. What can I do for you?" He asked politely.

-"I'm Laura Kenmore from the New York City social services, acting as representative from the Los Angeles social services." She said all matter-of-factly.

-"Okay, what is this about?"

-"Can I come in?" She asked not wanting to get into this in the hallway.

-"Of course." He led her to the kitchen where they both took a seat, before the woman spoke again.

-"Mister Scott, are you familiar with one Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer?"

-His whole body froze, Peyton, he hadn't seen or heard anything from her in over 6 years, ever since she had decided that she needed to stay in L.A. after her internship for her career and they had decided to end their relationship. He still thought of her frequently though, she after all had been the only person he had ever truly loved, even time couldn't erase that. He nodded to the lady curious as what this was about.

-The feeling that he had had at the pit of his stomach the moment she had said her name only got worst when he saw the very professional expression of compassion that she had on her face now. Something had happened, to Peyton, to his Peyton.

-"Is she okay?" He asked terrified of the answer.

-The woman took a deep breath before speaking, the professional exterior still standing strong. "No, Mister Scott, she isn't. She perished in a plane accident off the California coast a few days ago." She stopped letting it sink in.

-No, no way, it was all he could think of, it couldn't be her, she couldn't be dead. She was Peyton, she was so strong. He looked up at the woman, whatever her name was hopping that she would deny it, say it was some sick joke, anything to keep him from having to accept that the love of his life was dead.

-"I'm sorry."

-"No, she's not dead, she can't be." He said barely above a whisper, tears rolling from his eyes.

-"I'm sorry. But mister Scott, this is not the reason why I'm here." She moved on to the next topic of conversation like it was nothing.

-His head shot up, what else could she say after that. He didn't really care, nothing mattered anymore, not if Peyton was dead. He felt as if he had nothing to live for anymore, she was always what he looked forward to, a time where they would both finally be ready to spend the rest of their life together. Not that that would ever happened now, he thought bitterly.

-"Look, I don't think that I can take more now so…"

-She cut him off. "Miss Sawyer had a daughter, a five year old little girl whose legal guardianship is yours."

-His head shot up again, what? Peyton had a daughter. He did the calculation in his head, and didn't know if he was glad or angry that she couldn't be his and then he realised what the last part of the sentence meant.

-"What, you mean that Peyton…" He couldn't finish the sentence, he couldn't admit that she could be gone forever.

-"Had legal guardianship of her daughter determined and she decided that if anything were to happen to her, you were to become the sole guardian of her daughter, Anna Elizabeth Sawyer." She finished for him.

-"Anna Elizabeth Sawyer." He repeated slowly to himself, trying to wrapped his mind around the idea. Suddenly a thought hit him. "What about the father?"

-"Not in the picture apparently. He relinquished parenting rights over to Miss Sawyer before the girl was even born."

-Lucas wanted to find this guy just so that he could punch his lights out for not wanting what he himself would have given anything to have, a child with Peyton.

-"So?" He said when the wave of anger wore off slightly. He had no idea what to do now, what he wanted to do.

-"Now, you have two choices. You can either accept legal guardianship of the girl and fly to L.A. to get her from the home where she is presently housed by Social Services, or you can fight legal guardianship and go to court to ask that another guardian be chosen for the child. If no other person volunteers or is judged as a reasonable guardian the child will be placed under the care of the state of California, until her eighteen birthday." She explained again very professionally.

-Lucas wanted to yell at her. He had no idea where the anger was coming from, this woman had done nothing but be completely professional, but he was angry nonetheless. How could she talk about all of this like that, with such detachment, it was Peyton's daughter they were talking about, his Peyton. He chased the thought out of his head, he couldn't think of her right now, because if he did he would break down, and he couldn't do that now, things needed to be done. Before he was about to tell her his decision she spoke again.

-She handed him an envelop. "This was with her will, it is addressed to you. It stated that it was to be given to you before you made a decision about the child. So here."

-He took the envelop from her, handling it with the outmost care. Tears started to fall from his eyes as he saw his name written in her handwriting on the envelop. He brushed them off and slowly opened the envelop to read the letter not knowing what to expect.

-_Dear Lucas,_

_This is weird, I always considered myself a pretty morbid person, you know the glass's always half empty, okay so this isn't really funny, but I'm trying. If you read this then it means that I'm dead.(God can I be more cliché.) Sorry, I just never imagined myself writing one of those, but here it goes. _

_So if I'm dead and you're reading this it also means that you know about Anna. Don't worry she isn't yours, even though I wish so often that she is, she's not. After we broke up I try to move on, that didn't really work out, but that's not the point. I met this guy and for a while I thought that…I was wrong, and it didn't last but then I realised that I was pregnant. I decided to do it on my own and he was more than happy about that so he relinquished parenting rights. She's all mine, well all yours now I guess. _

_I know that this must be a shock for you, I don't know how long it would have been since we last saw each other when you read this, or if you'll ever read it at all, but I want you to know that I never stopped loving you, never. But what is done is done. I'm gone, you couldn't save me this time,(see I know what you're thinking), but this, whatever happened, wasn't your fault you need to know that. _

_But the point is, I'm gone, but Anna isn't. You and her are the best things that ever happened to me Luke, this is why I chose you. I don't want her to grow up feeling alone and scared to love like I did. You saved me from that. I know that this is a lot to ask, you probably have your own life now, but I'm asking anyway, save my daughter from that too, please. I would really like to know when I'm in heaven(God I hope that's where I'm going but anyway), I would like to know that the two persons that I love the most are together and happy, Please._

_I'm going to love you forever _

_(that's the whole idea isn't it, it's always going to be there)_

_P.S__.: I promised myself that I wouldn't go there, after all it's not the point, but I figured I'm dead what the heck. I just want you to know that all I ever wanted was for you to be happy, I want you to be happy more than I want to be happy myself, so I hope that you are or eventually will be, with all my heart._

_Peyton_

-Before he even realised it tears were pouring out of his eyes and he couldn't stop them. Somehow reading her tell him that she was dead made it all real, so damn real. He felt like every single bone in his body was hurting, he'd never felt so much pain before. She was gone, really gone and there was now this huge weight on his chest, he felt like he couldn't breath.

-He saw a hand with a tissue in it and realised that he wasn't alone. Somehow while reading Peyton's letter he had completely forgot about that woman from social services. Instantly he built up his walls. This part of himself, the part that belonged to Peyton, he didn't want to share with anyone, much less her, it just hurt too much. He took the tissue and wiped off his tears folding the letter carefully and putting it back in the envelop, the last thing he wanted was to lose it in some way or by some means to destroy it, it was the last thing of Peyton that he had.

-Realization dawned on him, no it wasn't. He could have Anna. He remembered Peyton's words in the letter, the words that would probably be burnt in his mind forever. She wanted him and Anna to be together, for the two people that she loved the most to be together. That made him smile, but only for a second, before reality came crashing down on him, he had lost her, it didn't really matter anymore that she still loved him. Then he thought back to Anna, she had lost her too.

-"When can I go get her?" He asked determined. Peyton's last wish was for him to take care of Anna and he would be damn if he let her down on that.


	2. Chapter 2

-He was sitting on the plane a few hours later on his way to Los Angeles to pick up Anna and bring her back to New York with him. He had no idea how hard it was going to be for him to get on the plane until the flight was called and he stood in line to hand in his ticket. Peyton had died on a plane, a plane had taken her away from him. Part of him wanted to run at that realization, he almost did but he couldn't, he couldn't abandoned Anna or let Peyton down. It took all the courage he had to board the plane, and now that he was on it, not to break down. The woman from social services had advised him to drop by the social services offices as soon as he got there to get the papers finalize and get Peyton's apartment keys and that was what he intended on doing, he focused on that.

-In her will she had left everything that she owned to Anna, and as her legal guardian it was his responsibility to handle it. The woman had suggested that he do this tonight so as not to traumatize Anna further by bringing her back to the only home she had ever known to rip her away from it again when the packing was done, and he figured she was right Anna was probably going through enough already.

-Lucas had no idea how he was going to do this, he didn't know if he could. His strong exterior was barely hanging by a thread as it was, he didn't think that he could manage to be in Peyton's apartment packing her stuff, but it's not like he had a choice. He needed to do this, for Anna. She would probably want some reminders of home and of her mother and he wasn't going to refuse her that because he was heartbroken and weak.

-Laura, the woman from social services, had suggested that he hire people to do it but Lucas couldn't bring himself to, he didn't want them to break or steal anything. He knew it was a pessimistic approach but he couldn't help it, he was a little short on trust at the moment.

-With hours to go in the flight his mind kept wandering back to Peyton. It was so hard thinking about her being gone. He had the letter in his jacket pocket, he refused to be separated from it, sure it was weird, but he didn't care. He had read it again multiple times, and each times it brought tears to his eyes and that feeling that the walls were closing in on him but he couldn't help it, he wanted to be sure to never forget her last words.

-He had to admit it almost brought a smile to his lips to see Peyton in the letter making fun of the situation, it was such a Peyton thing to do. His heart clenched every times he read the part about him not being able to save her this time. It didn't surprise him that she had known that he would blame himself, she had always known him so well, it was hard for him to admit but she had always understood him better than anyone else ever had, even his mother. It was hard to admit because it meant that he would never get to feel that way again, feel that somehow someone understood him perfectly, because that someone, his someone was gone, forever.

-He felt guilty, he should have gone after her sooner, he should have tried to make it work. He could think of so many things that he could have done differently it was making him sick to his stomach, mainly because he realised that he would never get to fix it, he would never get to tell her how much he loved her, how he never stopped and never would. He had to live the rest of his life not knowing if when she died she had known and that broke his heart even more.

-He got so carried away in self-pity that he was only brought out of it when he heard the pilot say that they would be landing in a few minutes and suddenly the pain was replaced by fear, the fear of not knowing if he could do this, if he could be strong enough for both him and Anna.

-He left the airport about an hour later, "damn airports" he thought "why did they have to take so long", and headed for a cab.

-"Los Angeles Social Services." He told the driver handing him a piece of paper where Laura had written the address of the building.

-The drive was quiet, the driver kept trying to make conversation but Lucas wasn't in the mood for small talk and after a while the driver realised it and drove in silence. When they reach the tall building Lucas silently handed the driver the money and got out of the car without a word. He was too focus on what he was about to do to think about formalities.

-He took a deep breath before pulling the door open and walking to the receptionist, she looked up at him from her crossword puzzle, apparently for some people today was just a normal day, he thought bitterly, before addressing her.

-"Hum, hi I'm Lucas Scott I'm here for…"

-She interrupted him. "the Sawyer case, I've been told to expect you. Just a moment." She told him taking the phone and pressing a few numbers. "Mam, Lucas Scott just arrived, okay I'll send him in. Follow me." She told him and he did as he was told without another word.

-She led him through a long hallway before knocking on the door, walking back the other way. Before he could ponder why she had just left him there the door opened to reveal a woman in her early fifties with a strong face, but caring eyes.

-"Mister Scott, I'm Sophie Myst. Miss Kenmore called to tell us that we should expect you tonight. Nice to meet you, now if you would follow me." She said leading him into her office and sitting behind the desk. He once again did as he was told and sat in the chair facing her.

-"First, my condolences for your loss, I can only assume how hard this must be for you." She said sincerely.

-Lucas could only nod, he was doing everything he could to stop the tears from coming again at the reminder of everything that had happened today. She seemed to sense his distress because she nodded and then continued.

-"We have already taken care of almost everything. All that's left to do is for you to put your signature on some documents and you will be able to leave with the child as soon as tomorrow morning, but first I'm going to need two pieces of I.D. please. Just precaution." She added when she was his curious expression. "We need to be sure it's really you."

-He once again did as he was told and handed the woman I.Ds. He saw her look intently at it and then back at him, noting information on her computer. When she was done she handed him his I.D's back.

-"Once last thing. Miss Sawyer formulated an i.d. question to ensure your identity. Here it is. Favourite author?" She asked professionally.

-Lucas smiled one of the very few smiles he had been able to come up with today. God he loved that girl, but once again it was followed by an intense wave of pain, it didn't matter anymore she was gone.

-"Mister Scott?" She tore him out of his thoughts. Lucas realised that she expected an answer. He thought about it, once again it was such a Peyton thing to do. She too had always been a little short on trusting people that she didn't know. She wanted to be sure that it was really him that would take care of her daughter. The woman coughed, once again bringing Lucas back to reality.

-"Hum, sorry. Steinbeck." He answered the question without hesitation.

-The woman smiled and then nodded indicating that it had been the answer she was looking for, then she continued making him read and sign more documents than he had ever sign before.

-"Sorry about all the paperwork, but you can never be too careful in these sort of situations." She explained. She had probably caught on his annoyed look at all of this.

-"It's alright", he lied continuing to sign his name where she told him to until he was finally done.

-"Congratulation Mister Scott you are now a father." She told him before handing him copies of all the documents he had signed before as well as other documents , one of them he recognized as being a birth certificate but the others he couldn't place.

-"Also included" She seemed to sense his incomprehension, "are the child's birth certificate, medical history, school records, a copy of miss Sawyer's bank accounts numbers. You're probably going to have to go there tomorrow to make sure that this is handle the way you want it, at least that's my suggestion. And here." She handed him a set of keys. "These are the keys to Miss Sawyer's apartment and car. You can do what you want with the car, but you're going to need to return the apartment key to the landlord when you're done."

-"You have any questions?" she asked when she was done explaining.

-Lucas looked at her and then at everything that he had in his hands and then back at her.

"Anna, when can I get her?" He asked nervously.

-"As soon as 8 tomorrow morning. You're going to need the documents and one piece of i.D. to show the responsible of the home, but after that it should only be a couple of minutes until you can be on your way."

-"Okay, hum thanks." He said standing up slowly and placing the documents in his suitcase.

-"Good luck." She told him standing up and shaking his hand.

-"Thanks." He said once again before leaving the office and walking out of the building.

-He sat on a bench waiting for his cab going back over everything. He was exhausted, to him it felt like this day had been going on forever and it wasn't over seeing as he still needed to head down to Peyton's apartment to take care of everything there. He really wasn't looking forward to it. Finally the cab arrived and Lucas told him the address of Peyton's apartment building, "better get it over it now", he thought as the cab driver drove them away.


	3. Chapter 3

-Lucas had been standing in front of the apartment door 303 for longer than he would like to admit. He could have pondered the significance of the fact that Peyton's apartment door number was his old jersey number twice, but he didn't have the strength, it was just too hard.

-He had the key in the lock but he couldn't bring himself to open the door. He had a stack of boxes at his feet and had stopped at a moving agency on the way to arrange for them to pick up the boxes in the morning and ship them to New York. All he had to do was go in there and pack everything, and yet he couldn't even open the damn door.

-He was scared, terrified even of going in there. He didn't think he could handle being around her things right now, just thinking about her brought tears to his eyes, he didn't know how he would be able to do what was expected of him without breaking down completely.

-He was pretty sure he had been there for hours when he finally got the courage to open the door and walk in, he needed to do this he told himself as he pushed open the door and took one step in the apartment.

-The first thing that got to him was the smell, he would always remember that smell, it smelled like her. Somehow smelling her gave him the courage he didn't think he had, it made him feel closer to her and he stepped into the apartment with all the boxes. But once he had closed the door behind him, he felt like all the courage that he thought he had was drained away from him. Everything in this place screamed her, and it hurt, it hurt so damn much.

-All of a sudden, all the tears that he had stopped himself from crying, all the pain, it all hit him at once and he collapsed to the floor in pain. Physical pain, emotional pain, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that he had never felt so much pain before. He placed his head on his arms and did nothing as tears and pain racked his body and mind.

-He cried, he had no idea for how long. He stopped when he couldn't cry anymore. He didn't know if it was because he didn't have the energy to, or if it was because he didn't have anymore tears to cry. What he did know was that he wasn't feeling any better, the pain and despair within his soul was still there and he still felt this weight on his chest. He considered trying to sleep it off, if only for a few hours, but he couldn't. He didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to dream of what could have been, he wouldn't be able to handle it, so he concentrated on his task.

-Without even looking at anything in particular, he packed. It was all he could do, take objects, wrapped them up and place them in boxes, nothing more nothing less. He didn't wonder what they were or what their significance was, he just packed. He did that for hours so that when the moving company showed at 6 the next morning he was almost done. There was only one room left to pack, the room that he couldn't bring himself to walk into, her room. So he stood in the hallway as the moving company went in and packed everything. He knew that he had told himself that he needed to do this himself but he just couldn't, he wasn't strong enough to walk into this room, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he was.

-One of the guys walked out about half an hour later. "We done sir, anything you want to keep with you before we pack the truck?" He asked politely.

-"Hell no." That was what the biggest part of his brain was telling him. He had had a complete breakdown just smelling her , there was no way he could have something of hers with him and be able to get through this day. But the other part of him thought differently, and this part took over without him realising it.

-"Is there pictures in there?" He asked quietly, not daring looking at the other man. The last thing he needed was for this guy to see him with tears in his eyes just thinking about a stupid picture.

-"Hum yeah sure, we found a bunch, mostly of the two of them."

-Lucas visibly gulped trying to keep his emotions in check. "Can you give me two please?" God he hated this, hated to have to ask for something that he could have easily just gone and got himself, but he couldn't, he couldn't bring himself to, so he had to wait as the other man nodded and went back inside the room to come back holding two picture frames that he handed to Lucas without a word.

-"Thanks." Lucas said taking the pictures and walking back to his suitcase. He didn't look at them, not once. He carried them with the back of the frame facing him and placed them in his suitcase the same way. There were people here, he didn't have time for a breakdown, not now anyway.

-He sat in the empty kitchen as the movers got everything into the truck wondering what he was going to do with everything. Probably keep everything into storage well except for the stuff that Anna wanted to keep. The woman at social services had advised him against putting everything from her old room in her new room to avoid any more psychological problems for Anna, so he figured he would probably keep her clothes and her toys as well as pictures and drawing and such, things that she wanted to keep, but that the rest would ultimately go to storage until he figured out what to do with it.

-When they were done and that they had assured him that they had his address in New York correctly, they went, leaving Lucas alone in the apartment again.

-He took a deep breath, smelling her one last time as a few tears once again made their way down his cheeks before he took his suitcase and walked out, locking the door behind him. He made his way to the landlord detaching the apartment keys from the key chain as he went.

-"Yeah." The man opening the door said grumpily. Lucas had obviously waken him up but he didn't care, this guys was nothing to him, and caring for stranger's feelings would require energy that he didn't have.

-He handed him the keys of the apartment. "Keys of the 303, it's empty." He stated simply.

-"Oh that young woman, it's so sad…" Lucas didn't let him finish his sentence, he knew what was coming, the fake condolences, well maybe they wouldn't be fake, but he didn't know, and most importantly he didn't care. He didn't want to hear them either way, so he just turned his back and walked away without another word.

-He only stopped when he reached the parking lot, feeling the set of keys still in his hand he realised that he had completely forgot about the car. He looked around and stopped at the parking space for the apartment 303, a grey Nissan, common. He didn't think about it more then that, he didn't care. He looked in the back and saw a children's seat. "Shit he hadn't thought about that". He didn't know what to do with the car, he had to get to the group home to get Anna and then he had to stop by the bank to create an account for Anna and transfer Peyton's money in it and then they had to fly back to New York, he didn't have time to take care of the car.

-He thought about it and decided to take the car to the group home, he could figure out what to do with it later. He put the key in the door and sat himself in the driver seat and there it was again, the smell. He didn't know why it had taken him by surprise so much, it was her car, it was normal for it to smell like her, but somehow he hadn't thought of it. Blame it on the emotional distress or on the lack of sleep it didn't really matter, all that mattered was that he was trapped in a closed spaced that was filled with her smell. Suddenly he felt like he was suffocating and that another breakdown was coming but he couldn't, not now. He needed to get to Anna, so he took deep breaths trying to calm the pain as much as he could. When it wasn't working and that he thought he was going to be overtaken by pain and tears again something brought him back, a song.

-He hadn't even realised that he had put the key in the ignition and had started the car, that was how out of it he had been. That song, _Forever and Ever Amen_, the song that was playing in that car right now, it calmed him down almost instantly.

-"Peyton." He said almost in a whisper. He didn't know how but he felt like somehow, someway it was her doing. He remembered her letter to him and took it out of his jacket going to the end. "I'm going to love you forever." He read out loud, silent tears running down his cheeks once again. He thought about those words and then about the song that was playing.

-"I love you too." He said to no one in particular but meant for her. "Forever and ever," he finished. He didn't care about what the song was really about, for him that was what it was about, him and Peyton. Her telling him that she loved him and would help him through this as she had always done before when he had needed her. That was what calmed him down, he knew that, in the core of his being, from wherever she was, Peyton was going to help him through this. This is what gave him the courage to drive away in the direction of the group home where he would finally meet the person that, he had swore the moment he had calmed down, he was going to make the centre of his universe. He was going to take care of Anna with all he had and trust Peyton to take care of him, in her own special way, when he would need her to the most.

-"Thanks Peyt." He murmured, silent tears still running as he drove.


	4. Chapter 4

-The drive had been almost peaceful, Lucas concentrated on the music that was playing and on following the instruction that the woman had given him yesterday. Before he even realised it he was there, parked in front of the group home where Anna was temporarily housed.

-He took a deep breath calming himself down and gathered the necessary documents out of his bag before walking out of the car and locking it behind him, slowly making his way to the front door.

-Now that he was here, he had to admit he had no idea what to expect. Sure, in his mind the plan had been clear. Go to L.A., get the kid, get back. But now, now that he was there he had no idea what to do, how to act around her, or even what to say, God he didn't even know what she looked like. He was torn out of his thoughts when the door flew open in front of him. Someone must have seen him standing there because he didn't remember knocking. Or he could have knocked and not realised it, he wasn't sure of anything these days.

-The man who had opened the door looked at him expectantly, obviously he was waiting for Lucas to explain what he was doing there so Lucas just went on with it.

-"Hi, sorry. I'm Lucas Scott. I'm here to pick up…" He was interrupted by the unknown man.

-"Anna Sawyer. Yeah, I've been told. You can come in."

-Lucas followed him inside and into an office where they both sat.

-"So, do you have…" This time it was Lucas who interrupted him, simply handing in over the documents and his driving licence for the other man to examine.

-"Yeah thanks." The man said accepting the document. He looked them over and then handed them back to Lucas.

-"Sorry, you know it's procedure." He explained.

-"It's fine."

-"So, Anna's been warned of your arrival. Obviously she knows what's going on. I don't know what her mom told her about you, but she didn't seem surprise at the mention that you were coming. Other than that, she's obviously upset. At this age it's always hard to know how much of the situation the child is really understanding, more so with Anna because she's refusing to speak to anyone. This is particularly common with psychological trauma such as the lost of a parent, it's usually temporary. She should start speaking again when she's ready. We tried to have her see a therapist yesterday but…"

-"That didn't go well." Lucas finished with a sad smile. Obviously if this child was anything like her mom she certainly wasn't the type to open up to someone she had never seen before.

-"No, she barely acknowledged his presence. How did you know?"

-"Just figured. Her mom wasn't a big talker either." He said using all his strength to keep his emotions in check.

-"Oh okay. So other than that she's perfectly fine, physically anyway. She hasn't eaten much lately but that too is normal and should come back on its own. So I think we covered everything. She's in her room right now, let's go get her so you two can be on your way." He said walking out of the room with Lucas trolling slowly behind.

-All the way to Anna's room, Lucas kept trying to come up with something to say, anything. He had nothing. What has he suppose to say to the child of the only woman he ever loved when she was dead and they were both left to deal with it on their own, without ever having met each other before. His thought process was stopped short when the man opened one of the door and stepped inside.

-Lucas sighed trying to gather his courage before following him inside. The room was occupied by 4 little girls he counted, all around the same age. As much as he had worried about not knowing what she looked like, now he knew exactly which one it was.

-Even with her back turned to him, it was unmistakable. The blond curly hair gave her away, along with the fact that she was laying on her bed facing the wall, not doing anything in particular.

-"She's the one over…" The man tried to indicate but Lucas cut him off.

-"I know which one she is." He said quietly.

-"Sorry. So I'm going to take the girls and we'll leave you two to talk for a little while. As you can see her things are already packed. Just drop by and say goodbye before you leave okay."

-"hum, yeah sure." He said, not taking his eyes away from the little girl who whether or not she knew he was there was not acknowledging his presence in the least.

-"Okay. Come on girls." He said to the girls who followed him out giving Lucas curious looks as they did. He didn't know if it was because of his appearance, which he guess must have been something to see, he hadn't really taken a look in the mirror or taken a shower since he had heard the news, he hadn't done much in term of personal hygiene point. In the other hand it could also be because they didn't know who he was or what he was doing here and were simply curious. He didn't have time to ponder much longer as he heard the door close behind him and snapped out of his thoughts.

-"There we go." He thought as he slowly made his way to the little girl, quietly sitting on the bed beside her.

-He wanted to say something, do something, anything for her to look at him but then he thought against it and just sat there giving her time. He knew that she knew who he was and why he was here. She would acknowledge him when she was ready, well at least he hoped, he thought as he waited.

-After about twenty minutes she finally made a move, she slowly turned around to face him shyly.

-Nothing could have prepared him for that. She looked so much like Peyton that it took his breath away. Her hair, her mouth, her nose, her chin, her hands, everything, but most importantly her eyes. The beautiful green orbs that were fixing him right now were all Peyton. He had no idea who the father was, but he doubted that one could see anything of his in this child, she was all Peyton.

-It shook him, deeply. As much as he had expected the resemblance, he sure as hell hadn't been prepared for it. Tears once again found their way out. He had probably cried more in the last two days then he had in his entire life, at some point he was bound to run out right?

-Seeing Anna's perplexed expression he spoke.

-"Sorry, it's just… you look so much like your mother, I didn't expect it." He explained and felt guilty when he saw her look away as tears started to make their way down her cheeks too, obviously she had been told so before and now, now that Peyton was gone, it was painful to be remembered. He decided to change the subject quickly.

-"So, do you know who I am?"

-She swept the tears away with her little fist and nodded slowly.

-"Good." He hesitated a little before speaking again. "I loved your mommy very much too." He confided.

-Once again he saw her look away as tears fell again, but this time she rubbed them away angrily.

-"You're angry." He stated. The anger was as evident in her eyes as it would have been in Peyton's. He continued. "It's okay, it's okay for you to be angry with her for leaving you, I get it." He admitted sadly. Watching as she once again nodded slowly, letting tears run down her cheeks again.

-He wanted to comfort her, hold her, anything to make her feel better, even if only for a little while, but he knew that he couldn't, not now anyway. Anna would have to be the one to make the first move, if he did he would just push her away. So he just sat there watching her cry as he too let the tears fall for only a small moment before he pushed them back with all the others he had yet to let fall.

-After a few minutes as he saw that she had calmed down he spoke again.

-"Okay so I know that this is a little late but I'm Lucas Scott. You can call me Lucas or pretty much anything you want. I'm very glad to meet you Anna Elizabeth Sawyer." He said holding out his hand and waited patiently as she examined it from afar before slowly extending hers and shaking his hand slightly. He gave her a smile, one of his very few real smile. It wasn't much, but it made her smile a little too. It wasn't a big smile, it didn't' reach her eyes, who has beautiful as they were, showed an amount of pain that sadly enough he could understand, as he felt the same intense pain that she did.

-She didn't say anything or do anything as he released her hand, but somehow he felt like she knew, that she knew how much he was hurting too and was acknowledging it. Maybe she could read him too, "no, it couldn't be. Only one person had ever been able to read him like that." He told himself chasing the thought out of his head, not that he was able to anyway, it hang around at the back of his mind with all the other thoughts and feelings that he was refusing to acknowledge.

-"So, you're going to come home with me, you know that?" He asked unsure of how much Anna really understood.

-She nodded.

-"Well that was a beginning." He thought.

-"I live very far away from here, did you know that." Once again another nod.

-"I went to your house and packed everything, so when we get to my house you can have all your toys and stuff." He told her.

-She started to cry again. "crap." He thought. "You had to go in and make her realize that her home was gone too. Jerk." He reprimanded himself in his mind.

-"I'm sorry. But if it helps, I didn't throw anything away, I'm bringing it back home and when you're old enough you can have all of it if you want." He tried to reassure her. Sure, telling her that meant he would probably have to pay for storage for years, but he didn't care. It was all hers, if she wanted to keep everything she could, if she wanted to sell everything then it would be her decision, when she would be old enough to take it, until then he wouldn't give away anything.

-She looked up at him and he knew what she was asking, he could see it in her eyes. "I promise."

-She didn't say anything once again, just turned around and laid down facing the wall again. He figured she needed time to digest everything, so he just let her be once again, simply sitting on the bed watching her.

-After about 10 minutes of this she sat up and then slowly got out of the bed holding her little hand out to him.

-He smiled, he already loved that girl.

-"Ready to go?" He asked standing up too.

-She nodded the sadness still overly present in her eyes. He didn't know if it would ever go away.

-"Okay, let's go then." He took her bag in one hand and hers in the other as he led her out of the room and into her new life with him. They both smiled a little as their hands touched. Both feeling the slightest comfort from the fact that they were no longer alone, they had each other.


	5. Chapter 5

-The two of them made their way out of the house after having said their goodbye, well he said goodbye, Anna barely nodded to acknowledge him. Obviously the man hadn't been her favourite person and Lucas could understand that so he gave the man a sad smile before leading the two of them outside to the car.

-Anna stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the car and once again Lucas felt guilty, he should have thought about that. It had been hell for him to get in the car, he couldn't imagine how it would be for Anna.

-"I'm sorry." He felt like all he did was apologize for his stupidity. "We can't keep the car you need to know that, but I don't really have time to handle everything myself so I was going to ask those people at the bank if they could take care of it for me. In the meantime we can drive to the bank in it or we can leave it here and take a cab, you decide." He didn't want her to feel like he was forcing anything on her. In fact he had just came up with the plan to ask the bank to settle everything with the car. He wanted to make sure that it was okay with Anna before doing anything though.

-She said nothing, not that he had expected her to anyway, but she did start walking again in the direction of the car which he took as a sign that she wanted to take the car.

-"Okay then." He said smiling at her as he too continued walking toward the car.

-He opened the door and watched carefully as she sat herself in her seat. Her expression and the tears on her cheek told him all that he needed to know, this was hard for her too. He gave her a reassuring smile before closing the door and walking to the other side of the car and sitting himself in the driver seat, praying that he would be strong enough not to break down in front of Anna, he needed to be strong, she needed him to be strong, so that was what he was going to do.

-He put the key in the ignition and they drove off silently toward the bank. When they got there, Lucas walked back to the other side of the car to help Anna out. He decided not to comment on her tearstained face, she had every reason in the world to be sad and there was nothing that he could say to make it better so he settled for saying nothing at all. He helped her out of the car and offered his hand hesitantly, not knowing if she would take it voluntarily again, so he smiled when she did.

-"I need to settle a few things here and then we can go eat before we leave. That okay with you?" He asked her.

-A nod. Maybe this was going to be easier than he thought. They already seemed to understand each other pretty well and they had only known each other for about an hour.

-They walked into the bank and Lucas told the receptionist the reason of his visit keeping a close eye on Anna in case this became too much for her. The receptionist told him that he could see someone in about 15 minutes so the two of them sat in the waiting room until then, again in silence. There wasn't anything to say anyway.

-Finally a man in his early thirties walked in and extended his hand to Lucas.

-"Martin Myers, nice to meet you mister Scott. Follow me in my office." He said indicating for Lucas to follow him but then he seemed to realise that Lucas wasn't alone.

-"We have a daycare centre if you're daughter doesn't want to come along. They would be happy to take care of her during our meeting." He said politely.

-Lucas froze, that stupid moron obviously had no idea what they were here for. He prayed to god and whatever entities were up there for Anna not to be too offended by the comment. He was obviously lucky today, well as lucky as a guy in his situation could be anyway, because Anna didn't let go of his hand. But one thing sure had upset her because she was now clutching it tightly, fear evident in her beautiful green eyes.

-He finally understood with the way her terrified eyes were fixating on him, she was scared that he would leave her here. He could understand that, in the last few days she had been taken away from everything that she knew to be placed in the care of someone she knew nothing about and then transferred again to him today, she had to be feeling a little lost.

-He looked from her to the man. "No it's okay, I'd like her to stay with me if you don't mind."

-"Sure." The man agreed leading the way out and toward his office.

-Relief was apparent in Anna's eyes as her and Lucas followed him to his office, her little hand still clutching his tightly.

-Moving Peyton's money to a separate account in Anna's name took longer than he had expected even though he had every necessary documents and authorizations. There were just so many damn documents to sign once more, he felt like he had signed his own name enough time to last him a lifetime and this was saying a lot seeing as he was a writer and spent a lot of time signing his name during book signing and such.

-Anna refused to seat on the chair that stood beside Lucas', he didn't know why but instead she had opted for the floor just beside him, she just stood there watching him attentively.

-A little over an hour later the two of them made their way out of the bank. Lucas opened the car door, got his bag and Anna's out as well as her car seat. He didn't know what he was suppose to do with it but the guy had told him that they needed to empty the car before handing over the keys and registration. "Damn the registration." Lucas thought as he once again made his way in the car. In the trunk he found nothing but the glove compartment was full though. He didn't look through it, not knowing if he could handle it and not willing to take the risk with Anna so close. Once he had found the registrations, he took everything else and dropped it into his bag, he could figure out what to do with it later.

-He handed the keys and registration to the bank agent who again asked him to sign something, which Lucas did without complaining as much as he had wanted to. Once that was taken care of and the guy walked away, he looked at Anna sadly seeing tears once again fall from those beautiful eyes.

-"Ready?" He asked her. She nodded. He couldn't help but be proud of her, this little girl was so courageous, "like her mother" he thought before chasing the thought away. "You can't do this now." He reprimanded himself in his mind. "You need to be strong, strong for her. She needs you." He encouraged himself .

-He nodded too and took their bags and her seat and called for a cab, taking her hand with his as one stopped waiting for them.

-They stopped at a small diner on their way to the airport even though he could tell that neither of them were really hungry. But Anna needed to eat, and if he thought about it, so did he. He hadn't eaten anything in almost 18 hours, not that he was hungry or anything. In fact, he kind of felt numb about everything and part of him was glad of that, he had enough with the emotional pain, he didn't need physical pain as well.

-They sat in a booth in the dinner, neither hungry for anything but Lucas decided that he needed to be a good example for her so he ordered a coffee and a sandwich and then looked down at Anna.

-"I know you're not hungry, I'm not either but we need to eat. Can you eat something for me, it doesn't have to be a lot as long as you try." He encouraged her and was rewarded when she slowly nodded her head.

-"Good, that's great. I'm going to read you the menu, just stop me when you figure out what you want to eat." He said before going on with reading her the menu. She finally settled on a ham sandwich after he had read the menu to her three times if not more. He didn't know if it was because she was picky or just that nothing really interested her but he didn't care, she was eating that was all that mattered.

-About forty-five minutes later they made their way out of the dinner and into a cab. Neither of them had really eaten much, but at least they had tried. Lucas, as much as he wanted to, had barely been able to take a few bites before he felt like his stomach couldn't take it anymore and had to stop. Anna must have been feeling the same way because he could see her face while she ate the few bites that she did take before she stopped and push her plate away as soon as Lucas, seeing the expression on her face had told her that it was okay to just leave it. She had looked as if she was close to throwing up and he didn't want to push her. As long as she tried to eat at each meal, it was fine with him.

-They walked into the airport a little while later, Anna still holding Lucas' hand tightly, and he took comfort in that. She was his lifeline, she kept him from drowning himself in sorrow thinking about Peyton, yet she was still a constant reminder of the woman he loved. He told himself that even though he had lost her, he still had something of hers. He had the thing that mattered most to her with him and he was well determined to take damn good care of her even if it took all he had to do it.

-Lucas panicked for a few seconds when he realised that he didn't know if Anna had a passport. He hadn't even thought of that when he had left New York, hadn't even considered a plan in case she didn't. Lucky for him as he scrambled through the pile of documents that he had received, he did fall upon a passport for Anna. It had never been used but was still valid. He sighed in relief and looked down at Anna who was eying him curiously, obviously perplexed by his behaviour.

-"It's nothing." He reassured her. " I just thought that I had forgotten something but turns out I didn't so we're all set."

-They sat in the waiting room waiting for their flight again in silence which Lucas appreciated. He was too tired and exhausted from everything to try to find something interesting to say so he was grateful that he didn't have to.

-Getting on the plane when it was finally time was a pain. Along with Anna's passport he had to show proof of legal custody as well as his passport as proof of identification. Then they had had to wait as they checked that everything was in order before finally allowing them to board the plane.

-Lucas was happy to have Anna with him on the plane this time though. Obviously she didn't know that she was sitting in one of the things that had taken away her mom because she seemed to enjoy herself and focusing on Anna kept Lucas from thinking too much about Peyton being gone and he liked that. It was a win-win, well figuratively.

-By the time they landed Anna was asleep, the exhaustion finally taking over, Lucas guessed. Not that that had happened for him, he hadn't been able to close a single eyelid even though he hadn't slept in close to 30 hours. He just couldn't, something inside him wouldn't let him rest. He carefully gathered Anna in his arms and exited the plane and the airport, taking their bags and her car seat with him. It was a bit of a stretch, but he managed to carry everything into the cab without waking up Anna.

-The reality of the situation hit Lucas as he sat in the cab on his way home with a sleeping Anna on his lap. He had an innocent life depending completely on him now and it scared him to death. He was terrified at the idea of somehow messing this up. He just couldn't, he couldn't do that to Peyton, or Anna for that matter. "You can handle it", he reassured himself, "you just have to, there is no other way." He realised in the silence of the cab looking down at Anna.


	6. Chapter 6

-Lucas difficulty made his way into his apartment. With Anna in his arms as well as all of their stuff it was being complicated. The elevator had been out of order which meant that he had to take the stairs and it had been a complete hell. He was no longer in shape to walk 10 floors of stairs with a sleeping kid in his arms, bags and car seat. He had been tempted to leave everything and come back after dropping Anna in his apartment but he got scared at the thought that she could wake up while he was gone, not knowing where she was and thinking that he had left her, and he didn't want anything like that to happened so he had continued to make his way up slowly trying to balance everything so as not to fall backward or forward and hurt Anna in the process. Finally he had made it completely exhausted, well more exhausted then he had already been.

-He dropped all the stuff he had been carrying on the floor and carried Anna to his bedroom. The guest bedroom wasn't furnished yet, so until he did that, which would probably be the next day, Anna would have to sleep in his room. He didn't think that it mattered anyway, she was sleeping like a rock.

-Leaving Anna in the bedroom, he made his way back and checked the answering machine. He had three missed messages. One from the moving company informing him that Peyton's things would be shipped off in the current week. He erased it immediatedly. The other one was from his agent asking him to called him back as soon as possible, probably about the new chapters that he had promised but failed to write.

-The last one was from his mother, calling to check in. He froze. He knew that he should call his mom, tell her everything. She could probably help with Anna, but he just couldn't, he couldn't bring himself to have any conversation that started with him announcing that Peyton was dead, not with anyone, even his mother. He knew he would have to tell his family eventually, but right now it was just all too soon, He could barely think about it, much less talk about it, so he just erased the call from both his machine and his mind. Also deciding that he would call his agent in the morning. Sure, it was barely seven o'clock at night here, but he had had a rough couple of days and with the jetlag, he felt like it was later than that. He really needed to sleep.

-He took both of their bags and walked back into the bedroom, finding Anna in the same position that he had left her in. He emptied Anna's bag, that contained nothing more than a few change of clothes. He would definitely have to go shopping if her things didn't come soon. He slowly moved to his, he didn't want to but it was not like he could just leave it there unopened forever. He took out the legal papers and everything concerning Anna and carefully placed it in his secure drawer. He then moved back to the rest of the bag. Going through the glove compartment stuff wasn't as hard as he had expected. It was mainly cds and car-related objects. He kept the cds, putting them on his desk and threw away the car stuff, well threw away was a lie. He had put it under his bed. He just couldn't bring himself to throw away anything that had been hers, even if it was only a car manual and these sort of things, it felt wrong.

-As he finished looking through the content of the bag, he finally stumbled on the objects he had been dreading, the pictures. He carefully took them out and fought the urge to just not look at them, but in the end, the pull was just too strong, no matter what it did to his composure, he needed to look, so he did.

-He turned them over slowly and took them in. They were beautiful, both of them. In both pictures Anna and Peyton, they both looked so happy. All that pain that he kept seeing in Anna's eyes it wasn't there. She looked like a beautiful, happy little girl.

-Peyton, well looking at Peyton made him feel things that he didn't think he was still able to feel. Her smile, her eyes, everything about her just screamed to him. She looked happy, even if there was in her eyes a parcel of pain, she still looked exceedingly happy. In one picture they were sitting outside eating ice cream, and in the other they were inside drawing.

-The happiness on her face, on both of their faces, as well as how beautiful she was, it broke down the walls that Lucas had been keeping up all day, and the tears were let free. He walked out of the room, not to wake Anna, before he let the sobs overtake his body.

-He missed her, so much. He knew that he hadn't seen her in 6 years and that he had to be used to the feeling of missing her but it wasn't the same. Before, sure he missed her terribly, but he comforted himself with the thought that she was living her dream and that she would come back to him when she was finally ready for them. That hope of a near future where they would be happy together was what kept him going when he missed her too much.

-Now, now he didn't have anything, no hope of a happily ever after, nothing. She was gone and he would never get to see her again, to hold her, to kiss her. All those things that he wanted so badly to do, they weren't in the realm of possibilities anymore, she was gone. Just like that, no warning, nothing. So he cried, he cried for him, he cried for her, but mostly he cried for them, the them that he would never get to experience again.

-He fell asleep like that, sitting in the hallway sobbing into his hands.

-He could see her, feel her. He dreamt of her, of them. It wasn't the first time since they had broken up that he dreamt of her, it was pretty common. But before, those dreams had made him wake up with a smile on his face, this time it was different. The dream was different. She was walking away from him with a sad smile on her face. He kept trying to follow her but he couldn't move his legs, he was rooted to the floor, so he screamed, screamed her name as loud as he could, but she didn't turn back, she just kept on going until he couldn't see her anymore.

-With that he woke up in sweat, his throat burning. He almost had an heart attack when he saw a pair of green eyes looking worryingly down at him. For just a second he had thought that she was someone else, thought that she was her mother, but he had crashed down to reality hard. Peyton was gone, Anna was the one looking down at him with a scared expression on her face. Obviously he had woken her up, she must have been terrified waking up to him screaming her mother's name.

-He looked up at her. "I'm sorry Anna, I didn't mean to scare you, it was just, it was…" He couldn't bring himself to finish, it was just so damn hard, he thought as tears started to make their way down his cheeks again. "Damn here we go again." He thought bitterly.

-Anna understood his distress, he could see it in her eyes through his tears but her next move shocked him more than anything else. She sat herself down on his lap, straddling him, and hugged him with all her might as tears started to fall down her cheeks too.

-Lucas hugged her back. He held onto her as tightly as he could without hurting her and they cried together.

-He had no idea how long they sat like that, both on the floor crying, but they must have both cried themselves to sleep because when he woke up again it was morning and Anna was already awake on his lap. He was relieved that he hadn't had any other dreams, or nightmare, it depends on how you looked at it, well none that he remembered anyway.

-He didn't feel rested or better than yesterday, but he didn't care. It was the first thing that he had realized, nothing would ever be like it was before, nothing would never be the same without her. He expected the pain, he didn't like it, or welcome it; it hurt like hell, but he expected it, which is why it wasn't that much of a surprise for him to wake up with it.

-He looked down at Anna. "So how did you sleep?" He asked.

-She looked at him and as simple as that he knew. She had slept as well has he had, a restless sleep that leaves you waking up as tired as you had been when you had gone to sleep.

-"Yeah, I didn't sleep that well either." He agreed standing up. It proved difficult with the wear of the previous night and the weight of Anna but he managed. He got up and walked them back to the doorway. She looked at him quizzically.

-"I figure since you were asleep yesterday, might as well give you the tour right now." She gave him a small smile that made his heart melt. He loved to make her smile.

-"So this is your new home." He said twirling her around so that she could see her surroundings. She giggled. God he loved that sound.

-He smiled at her, taking her all around the apartment in his arms. Finally he stopped in front of a closed door.

-"This," he said as he opened the door to show a room all painted in white and unfurnished, "is going to be your room. We can paint it whatever colour you want and you'll get to chose the furniture too. We'll go shopping for all that later if it's okay with you." He looked over at her.

-She gave him an enthusiast nod, the smile on her face almost reaching her eyes.

"Good." He walked out of the room and took her back to the living room where they stood in front of the glass door that led to the balcony. He opened it and walked them outside.

-"And this." He said pointing to the city. "This is your new city. This is New York. I love it here and I really hope that you'll grow to love it too." He said with a small smile.

-She looked around taking it all in. When he saw that she was done, he spoke again.

-"Now what about breakfast?"

-He smiled again when she made a face.

-"I know, I'm not that hungry either, but let's try okay."

-She nodded and he took them back inside for the beginning of their first official day as a new family.


	7. Chapter 7

-After breakfast, which had consisted of a few sips of coffee and half a toast for Lucas and of a couple bites of cereals for Anna, they were finally starting their day. Lucas was thinking sarcastically that if they didn't get their appetite back soon he was going to save a bundle on groceries.

-He led Anna to the bathroom so that she could get cleaned up. She was old enough to do everything on her own so Lucas just sat on the floor reading, well pretending to read, he just couldn't seem to concentrate. It had been about 10 minutes when he felt her eyes on him and looked up at her.

-She had a bottle of shampoo in her hand and a perplexed look on her face.

-"Need help with that?" He asked and she nodded.

-Lucas gulped and stood up to sit himself on the edge of the tub. She silently handed him the shampoo bottle and he took it slowly taking a deep breath to keep his emotions in check.

-He remembered washing Peyton's hair so many times that he could still feel the texture on his fingers. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind though, he couldn't keep thinking about this kind of stuff, it was eventually going to kill him, so he concentrated on his task, that's all he could do, focus on specific tasks. That way maybe he would be able to get through today, and the days to follow.

-After he was done, he dried her hair and then she went to get dressed as he took a shower. He had to admit, after almost 48 hours without one, it felt good. He walked out of the bathroom 10 minutes later dressed and ready to go and headed for his bedroom to see how Anna was faring.

-He found Anna sitting on his bed still in her towel with an absent look on her face and tears in her eyes.

-Lucas said nothing, he just went in and sat beside her. Anna felt his presence and before he could realise what was happening, she had straddled him and was now burying her face in his neck as she cried. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He didn't know what had caused the tears, nor did he asked, it didn't matter, he knew that it was about Peyton, and that was all he needed to know, she missed her mom.

-As he held her, some tears found their way to his eyes as well, but he forced himself to push them back, right now it wasn't about him, it was about Anna. He needed to be there to comfort her, he couldn't allow himself to be weak.

-A few minutes later, she pulled back slowly and looked up at him with a sad look on her face. Lucas brushed the remnant of her tears away with his thumb.

-He didn't tell her that it was going to be okay, or anything of that nature, he couldn't because he knew that it would have been lying, he couldn't promise her that and he wouldn't.

-"So, ready to get dress?" He asked simply. She nodded and got off Lucas to go find her clothes.

-Later that morning to two of them had found their way into a furniture store to furnish Anna's room. They were in the kid's section and Lucas looked down at Anna who was holding his hand.

-"You can pick any set you want." He told her.

-She looked up at him with an amazed expression on her face.

-"Really." He confirmed for her, seeing that she wasn't sure.

-That seemed to get her going because, about two seconds later, she was dragging Lucas all around the place looking at furniture.

-After over half and hour of that, Lucas had determined that it wasn't just his imagination, Anna was very picky. They had looked at every set at least three times already and she still hadn't made up her mind. She had also made a point to show her repulsion for the ones that Lucas suggested simply by the way she was looking at him. But all and all they were having fun, it was good to be doing something as normal as shopping, after the days that they had had before.

-Finally, after what seemed like forever for Lucas, Anna finally settled on a white bedroom set with big purple flowers. Lucas nodded, he had to admire her taste, it was one of his favourite too.

-"Okay then, this one it is." He told the vendor who nodded and followed them to the cashier.

-Once Lucas had paid for the set and the delivery that they had promised would be later today the two of them made their way out of the store. As they walked on the sidewalk, Lucas saw a toy store and decided that seeing as he had no idea when her stuff would come he might as well buy her a few things. They walked in, Anna with once again an amazed expression on her face.

-"Okay, your toys and stuff aren't here yet so let's get you some in the meantime."

-Anna beamed and Lucas decided that making her smile like that would become his ultimate goal for the rest of his life, she deserved it.

-Once again Anna's picky side made an appearance at the store but after a while she settled on an art kit, a bike, a kitchen kit, and some dolls.

-After that, their next stop had been a children clothing store to buy Anna some clothes and as they went in Lucas thought that he had unleashed an hurricane. Anna practically dragged him all around the store picking clothes as she went and looking at Lucas to see if she could try them on. He was convinced that he had just become the store's best client when Anna went into the dressing with more clothes than he himself owned. She was dead serious on showing him each outfit that she tried on and rolled her eyes when she realised how unhelpful Lucas was being in helping her decide which ones were the best.

-When he saw her after she had tried each outfit at least twice and was trying to decide on which one she wanted most, Lucas just melted, this little girl was adorable, he just couldn't say no to her.

-"Anna, let's take all of them. Beside, you were probably going to need some new clothes for school anyway, let's just say we started shopping early." He smiled at her, realizing that he still needed to enrol Anna in school. Peyton had already filled out everything when she had registered her for a school in L.A., so all that Lucas needed to do was find a school and fax in the paperwork, he decided that he was going to have to do that as soon as possible seeing as school started in just over 2 months and that even if Anna was only starting kindergarten, she couldn't miss out on it because he had forgotten to enrol her.

-At his comment, Anna turned around, flashed him a smile and sprinted into his arms. He laughed, his first real laughed since everything that happened, Anna really was his salvation.

-Lucas addressed the young retailer beside him.

-"We'll take all of them." He told her and once again took off his wallet.

-By the time they got home after a last trip to home depot to pick out some paint and stuff for Anna's room, it was late that afternoon, Anna smiling at him as she watched him struggle with all their bags while the concierge rolled in her bike and went back for the kitchen set.

-Although one of his most expensive day ever, the day had been a really good one. The had had fun and Lucas could tell that Anna was becoming more and more familiar with him.

-He decided that he might as well start painting Anna's room today so that it could be ready for her as soon as possible and went in his bedroom to change, leaving Anna in the living room to play with her new toys. She looked at him curiously, but then went back to playing as Lucas went into her room.

-He smiled when he saw her come into the room 15 minutes, changed and with a determined look on her face. Lucas laughed.

-"You want to help?" She nodded determinedly.

-Lucas smiled and then looked her over and than at the purple paint.

-"Wait here." He told her as he started to leave the room thinking of something. He came back seconds later with a bandanna.

-"Come on." He told her motioning for her to come closer. When she did, he wrapped it around her head to protect her hair. He didn't feel like washing purple paint off her hair for hours once they were done. "Good. You look beautiful." He told her.

-Lucas had Anna stirring the paint while he taped the corners. He had decided to paint 2 walls purple and 2 walls with a fresh coat of white and he didn't want to screw it up.

-He had to laugh when he was about to start painting and turned around to find Anna with a brush in her hand that was almost bigger than her head.

-He picked through the bag and walked back to her holding a much smaller one.

-"There, that's better."

-She smiled innocently at him and he smiled back. She was starting to fall back to her true self he knew it, and he loved it.

-Lucas showed Anna what to do as he started at the top and her at the bottom, just doing the outline. He had to admit, she was good. Not that it was that much of a surprise, it was in her genes, he thought sadly going back to painting the walls. Again, focusing on simple tasks seemed to help him get through the day.

-By the time they were done with the first coat it was well past seven o'clock and as he looked over at Anna he couldn't help but realise how good of an idea the bandanna had been. Anna had paint everywhere, it was hilarious. He laughed at her and she sent him a murderous glare.

-For dinner, Lucas ordered a pizza, which they would probably eat for a week at the rate they were going. Even with the physical activity, neither of them was really hungry so they barely munched a couple bites of their slides before they couldn't eat anymore.

-Afterward, they watched tv until Anna fell asleep in his arms and Lucas carried her back to his bedroom, changing her into her pjs before tucking her in safely and kissing her forehead. He left the room and went back into the living room where he finished the program that he had been watching.

-He must have fallen asleep in front of the tv, because next thing he knew he was woken up by a shrilling sound.

-"MOMMMYYYYYYY!"


	8. Chapter 8

-Lucas dashed to his bedroom faster than he ever had. He stormed in to find Anna sitting on his bed panting, and sobbing heavily. He rushed to her and gathered her into his arms as she started to cry some more. He didn't ask what had happened, there was no need, it was as clear as day. She had just experienced one of the reasons why he dreaded sleep, the nightmares. He just held her as his own heart constricted in pain at her suffering and his inability to do anything about it.

-When she had calmed down, Lucas went to lay her back down on the bed to leave her to sleep, but she had a death grip on his neck, so Lucas just laid down with her hoping that his sleep would be dream free.

-He wasn't so lucky. He woke up panting and in sweat only a few hours later. He looked over at Anna who was sleeping beside him, he must not have screamed this time because he hadn't woken her up.

-The dream itself though was way worst than the ones he had experienced the night before. He had seen it, well imagined it he guessed. There was no way that what he had seen in his dream was really the way she had died, there were no way for him to have known, but still it didn't make the dream less horrible. He could see her, terrified, in pain, alone, and there was nothing that he could do to save her, he had to watch her die.

-He knew that it was only a dream, but it felt so real. He had felt her pain, her despair and it was too much for him, seeing her in pain, even in his dreams, made him feel pain, and added to his own it was just unbearable.

-He made sure that Anna was still asleep before quickly exiting the room. There was no way he was going back to sleep so he went to his office in the next room and opened his computer.

-He knew it was way past masochistic, but he research the plane accident, he needed to know what had happened, what she had gone through in her last moments. Tears streamed down his eyes as he read about one of the motor exploding and sending the plane crashing down into the ocean. Newspaper articles mentioned that witnesses had seen a few parachutes exiting the flaming plane, but authorities were refusing to comment saying that they were still in the process of dislodging the wreck of the plane from the ocean and that no parachutes had been recovered from the coast at the time. Therefore, all passengers were presumed dead until evidence of the contrary was found, not that they believed it would.

-Lucas wanted to hope, pray, do whatever he could for Peyton to have been one of those mysterious parachute passengers, but he knew, knew that it was highly unlikely. More than a hundred people had been on that flight, what were the chances that she could have been of the very few to jump off before the crash and not have killed herself in the process.

-He couldn't think about it anyway. He didn't think that he could handle it, he couldn't handle to hope only to have it completely shattered when they did find Peyton's body on that damn plane. He needed to be strong, Anna was the only thing that mattered now.

-Deciding that he wouldn't sleep for the rest of the night anyway, Lucas changed into his painting clothes and went back to Anna's room. If he was lucky, maybe he would be able to finish by the time she woke up.

-The next week passed rather uneventfully. Lucas finished painting Anna's room and moved the furniture in. He had given her one of the two picture frames and it had made her cry at the time but then she had placed it firmly on her bedside table and Lucas had seen her look at it painfully on more than one occasions. He had kept the other one for himself, hidding it under the bed. Maybe one day he would be strong enough to look at it.

-Their days were spent exploring New York and getting to know each other. Anna was still not talking but Lucas wasn't pushing her, he knew that when she was ready she would talk. He was spending every waking moment of his days with Anna, he took her with him everywhere around town, dodging calls from both his agents and his mother. He didn't have anything to say to either of them anyway so why bother. His agent would be asking him to write those damns chapters, and there was no way he could do that right now, his head just wasn't into it.

-As for his mom, well that was a whole other story. He couldn't talk to her because he knew that even if he didn't mention Peyton or Anna, that just by the tone of his voice, she would know that something was wrong and she would pry until she figured out what it was and Lucas knew that he wouldn't be able to handle it. He knew for sure that if his mom found out about Peyton she would ask him to talk about it, try to make him open up, tell him that he would feel better, but he knew that it would be useless. He couldn't talk about it, not now and maybe never and he didn't want to be pushed, hence the reason for dodging her calls.

-The day when Peyton and Anna's stuff had arrived was a particularly hard one. Him and Anna went through the boxes from her room together, Lucas deciding to send everything else in storage until he could handle going through it, not that he knew if he would ever be ready for that. Some days it looked like he was never going to be ready.

-They pretty much kept everything, both with tears in their eyes as they unpacked everything. The pictures were the hardest to look through though. Lucas was puzzle as to how images that capture your happiest moments could come back later to bite you in the ass. All the pictures were of Anna, either alone or with Peyton, and in every single one of them Anna was radiating happiness, but now, looking at them was excruciating for both Lucas and Anna.

-They had finally decided on two piles; one for the stuff that she wanted to keep and the other for stuff that she wanted but that at the time hurt too much too see. Then Lucas made her her own 'Peyton box' that he filled with the latter and placed in her closet, for her to have when she felt like it.

-As much as they enjoyed themselves during the days, the nights were a whole new story.

-Lucas barely slept as he navigated between dealing with his own nightmares and Anna's.

-Almost every night this week had went the same way. Lucas had put Anna to sleep in her own room and then the two of them had woken up the next morning in his. It was either because Anna had a nightmare and refused to sleep alone in her room afterward or it was because he had one and woke her up with his screaming and she refused to leave him afterward. Either way, neither of them enjoyed sleep particularly.

-Lucas had also enrolled Anna in a private school that was close by. It was a great school and even though Anna had grimaced when he had informed her that uniforms were mandatory, he was sure that she was going to love it.

-He had also been informed of a memorial service that was to be held in Los Angeles for all the families of the plane crash victims which was what the two of them were preparing themselves for at the moment.

-When he had brought the idea to Anna, she had fought against it for hours. She didn't want to go, she had made that clear by refusing to look at him or even hear him out for a whole afternoon when he had suggested that they go, but afterward she had somehow changed her mind, not that she looked particularly happy about it, but at least she had accepted to go, that was a beginning.

-Lucas really didn't want to go either, but he knew that in order to be able to accept what had happened eventually, they both needed to go and deal with it. He dreaded it, but if it could help Anna deal with everything then that was what he was going to do, so here they were, a little over a week after they had met, going back to Los Angeles for the memorial service honouring Peyton and the rest of the passengers of that damn plane.

-The plane ride to Los Angeles was still as hard for Lucas then as it had been the other two times. There was something about knowing that Peyton had died in one, that made him hurt just being in a plane. Anna still seemed to enjoy it though, she was watching the movie, and eating peanuts.

-Lucas had decided that as long as she didn't ask how her mom had died, he wasn't going to tell her. Why put her through more pain, she was already going through enough as it was.

-They had decided to fly in on the same day and fly back afterward, well Lucas had decided, but Anna hadn't objected. He figured, she too wasn't thrill on spending any more time in L.A. then they needed to.

-When the plane landed in L.A., they had a few hours before the memorial so Lucas took Anna out to lunch. Their eating habits hadn't really improved, neither of them were really hungry when came the time to eat, but they always ate a little and today's lunch was no exception.

-After lunch they walked around for a little while, they stopped at the park and Lucas watched as Anna played around, but she wasn't really in the mood so she had ended up sitting on Lucas' lap as the two of them simply sat there preparing themselves for what was to come.

-The memorial was beautiful, Anna cried when they said Peyton's name out loud and Lucas had to use all his strength not too, but once again he succeeded. He was getting better with each day at keeping his emotions in checks, the nights though were still off limit. That was when all that he was keeping out during the days went back to haunt him and the reason why he barely slept.

-The memorial had been longer than he had expected and before it was even over he had a sleeping child on his lap, the crying, the sun, the flight, it had gotten to her and she had fallen asleep.

-Afterward he learned that the company was compensating families for what happened, to avoid a lawsuit he guessed, not that he was interested in suing them anyway, but they offered him a considerable amount of money for Anna.

-He didn't want to take it, didn't want their money, it was not like it was going to bring Peyton back, beside he had enough money, he could provide Anna with everything that she would need, but he took it anyway. He decided to put it in the account that he had set up for her, that way when she would be old enough she could decide for herself what she wanted to do with it.

-Anna woke up only as they boarded the plane. The sad expression on her face more present than usual. He figured, it must not have been easy for her to be here so soon after her mother's death, and he understood, he felt it too. Being in this city would never be the same. Before, he loved coming here for book signings or promotion tours, but now, now he couldn't be here without thinking about her and it was still too painful to bear, it must have been the same way for Anna.

-Flying too was another thing that had been taken away from him by this whole thing. He couldn't be on a plane anymore without having this feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He hated planes now, hated them for what they had taken away from him and from Anna and it was all he could think about as the two of them made their way back home.


	9. Chapter 9

-The following weeks after their returns from California weren't really eventful. The two of them settled back in the routine that they had created the previous week. They would spend the day either exploring town or at the park. Anna loved when Lucas took her there. She would ride her bike, play on the swing, she almost looked like a normal kid at those times, the pain that was ever present in her eyes rescinding and giving place to happiness. Lucas loved seeing her like that it was what he lived for now.

-There were moments though when Anna wasn't in the mood and in those times Lucas would simply leave her alone, give her space as she worked through her pain either through art or simply by lying on her bed looking at pictures of her and Peyton. Those times, the times where Anna was visibly hurting more than usual were the worst for Lucas. There was something about seeing her in pain that got to him, made it harder for him to maintain his walls up and his emotions in check.

-The nights were still as hazardous as they had been the week before, for both him and Anna. Some times it was him comforting her and other times it was her comforting him. Lucas felt guilty for waking her up when the nightmares had him waking up screaming, he tried everything to try to shuffle his screams so as not to wake her up. He closed the door of his room, tried to sleep with his face in his pillow to muffle the sounds, nothing worked, he had no idea how, she still knew. Every time he woke up screaming she was right there beside him ready to hug him as for a few minutes he allowed the tears to fall.

-Some other nights, he'd wake up to Anna climbing into his bed crying because she had had another nightmare. He'd hug her and hold onto her until she fell back asleep and the next morning everything would be forgotten until the following night where one of them would end up comforting the other all over again.

-Today, on day 24 as Lucas had started to refer to them, they were at a doctor appointment for Anna. Lucas had figured a couple days before that Anna should probably see a doctor to ensure that she was still in good physical health. Even though Anna did not seem to have any sweet tooth for doctors she accepted to go which is how they had ended up here. Lucas had been on the net for hours trying to find her the best paediatrician he could that was close by and then scheduling an appointment for Anna.

-They had been waiting in the waiting room for a little over half an hour when a nurse addressed them.

-"Anna Sawyer." Lucas nodded. "Your turn. You can follow me." She said before starting to walk back in the direction of one of the examination room.

-The look Anna sent him and the way her hand grasped tightly on his fingers conveyed the message loud and clear, he wasn't to leave her side at all cost. He sent her a reassuring smile before getting up and taking her into his arms as she appeared not to want to move a single muscle in the direction they were being led to.

-"Everything's going to be okay." He promised as they entered the room to find a man in his 50s in a white coat waiting for them.

-The man introduced himself before looking at Anna who had hidden her face in Lucas' neck.

-"Your daughter a shy one?" He asked Lucas, who in the passing weeks had gotten used to strangers assuming he was Anna's father, and didn't flinch at the comment. Being honest, he considered it a compliment and wasn't about to deny it.

-"No, she's just a little scared of doctors." He said kissing the top of her head.

-The doctor nodded and then spoke again taking notes.

-"Reason of your visit?" He asked professionally.

-"Just a regular check-up. I want to make sure she's as healthy as possible."

-"Okay. Let's get started then. If you could just sit her there." He motioned to the examination table.

-As he was about to sit her down, Lucas felt her death grip on his neck. He looked her straight in the eyes.

-"You'll be fine, I'm not going anywhere. He's not going to hurt you." He reassured.

-It must have been enough because slowly she let go of his neck and he was able to put her on the table for the doctor to do his job.

-The doctor's verdict. Anna was a little underweighted for her age but otherwise in perfect health. Lucas had mean more surprised than he had expected at how relieved he had felt at the announcement. Somehow to him it meant that he was doing an okay job taking care of her and that was a huge relief.

-On their way home Anna was particularly quiet, sure since she wasn't speaking she was always kind of quiet, but most of the time he could he hear her move, tap her fingers on the window, these sort of things, but on the ride home she was dead quiet and that worried Lucas.

-"You okay?" He asked her. A nod. He could have pushed, but decided against it, opting instead to give her some time and then see.

-She barely paid attention to him for the rest of the afternoon and dinner.

-He was in the living room working on his computer when he saw her reappear. She stood firmly in front of him, her arms crossed on her chest. Seeing she obviously wanted his attention he closed his computer and set it aside.

-"Anything I can do for you?" He asked her with a smile.

-She didn't answer him but she did climb on the couch and settle on his lap. Lucas securely wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head as she settled herself on his lap, her little arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her face buried in his chest.

-He didn't say anything, just held her, it wasn't uncommon for Anna to all of a sudden come to him simply to be comforted and he actually loved it, loved that somehow he could comfort her, it gave him this warm feeling inside that he hadn't felt in so long, the last time _she_ had needed his comfort.

-He was surprised though when a few minutes later she spoke.

-"Lucas?" She asked timidly as she pulled back to look up at him.

-He almost jumped at the sound but luckily was able to recover quickly so as not spook her too much. She was talking it was huge, he didn't want to screw it up and have her crawled back into her shell.

-"Yeah?" Trying to maintain his voice as steady as he could. Not mentionning how surprised he actually was that she was now speaking.

-"Can you be my daddy?" Her voice was hesitant, scared even.

-To say that he was shocked had to be the understatement of the century. The question left him completely clueless at what he was suppose to say to her question. He had thought before about what were the first words that she would say to him when she started to speak, but those sure as hell hadn't made the list.

-She seemed to sense his confusion because she spoke again in the same hesitant, quiet voice.

-"I know you're not my real daddy, my mommy she told me about him before but…" She rubbed off the tears that had formed in her eyes and fallen on her cheek and then continued. "But I don't have a mommy anymore and mommy she said that what made her my mommy wasn't really that I came from inside her but how much she loved me." She rubbed more tears from her eyes as Lucas did the same. Her talking about Peyton, her talking point, it was just too much, he wasn't able to contained the tears this time.

-"And you…" She continued quietly, "You keep saying that you love me very much and I want , I want you to love me like a daddy." She finished burying her face in his chest once again as it became too much for her and sobs started to rock her body.

-Lucas was still in shock as he held onto her tightly and kissed her hair once more, tears once again falling from his eyes.

-"I already do sweetie, I already do." He kept saying in her hair over and over again until she had calmed down enough to hear him and pulled back to look up at him questionably.

-He brushed her tears with his thumbs.

-"You do?" She asked hesitantly. "You love me like a daddy?"

-He kissed her nose which put a smile on her beautiful face. "Yup, I do." He then gave her the best smile he could muster through his tears.

-"You're going to be my daddy?" She asked a little more hopefully.

-"I would be happy to Ann. Anything for you." She smiled again at him using his nickname for her.

-"So, can I call you daddy?" Again more hopeful. God he loved her voice, it was beautiful.

-"I would love you to Ann." He said the tears in his eyes gone and a bright smile on his face.

-For one of the very few times, he saw her smile reach all the way to her eyes before she threw herself back at him, engulfing him in the tightest hug she could.

-"I love you daddy." And just like that the tears were back, but this time they were happy tears. He was overjoyed to finally hear her say that she loved him, and her calling him daddy was the cherry on the sundae. He hadn't been this happy in a long time.

-"I love you too Ann, I love you too."


	10. Chapter 10

-After that evening when Anna had started speaking again and declared him her daddy, things had started to improve progressively for the two of them. Lucas couldn't keep Anna silenced for more than an hour anymore, but he wouldn't have wanted to for anything in the world.

-He had learned so much more about her in the following weeks it was astounding. He had learned that she really was as picky as he had pegged her to be as she had spent hours telling him what she did and did not like about everything they encountered. Be food, clothes, toys, the girl had a very precise verdict on what she liked and what she didn't like and could spend hours making up her minds about things that she did like.

-He had also learned that she loved art in every single form, which he had already guessed from the amounts of times that he had spent watching her draw or paint, but nonetheless it was nice to hear her talk about it. She also loved dogs, hated cats; loved sugar, hated anything that was bitter; loved purpled, hated green. The list went on and on but he only loved her more for it. His little girl knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to say it.

-They barely spoke about Peyton though, which honestly Lucas was relieved about. Anna would drop in some things here and there during conversations, but it never went farther than that. Thinking about her still hurt too much for both of them to be able to bring up the subject.

-Lucas knew that any therapist on the planet would tell him that Anna, and probably himself as well, needed to speak about it, but he wasn't about to push her or himself. If she wanted to speak about it he would listen to her, but he wasn't about to force her into opening up, no matter what child psychology books said.

-Anna was getting better, she had gotten her appetite back, and was speaking again. Sure she still had a few nightmares each week, but he figured she would probably have them for some times, the kid had just lost her mother, it was to be expected.

-Honestly, Anna was probably doing better than he was.

-Lucas was still scared to sleep, so he limited his sleeping hours to a minimum and still the little rest that he did take was plagued by nightmares.

-Anna was helping a lot though, every time he woke up screaming she was on his bed in a matter of minutes. She wouldn't say anything, just hug him until they both went back to sleep. She would never ask about it or bring it up, he figured it was a favour they were exchanging.

-She didn't ask about his, he didn't ask about hers. Their dreams were their own little secrets and neither of them were going to pry on those of the other. Sure when Anna had some, he would always ask if she wanted to talk about it, but each time she shook her head no through her tears, he would let her be. She knew that he would be there to listen if she wanted to share and that was enough for him, Anna was returning the favour.

-He had tried to start writing again a few weeks ago at the urgency of his agent, but everything he wrote sucked. He submitted them anyway, only for his agent to bring them back saying that he had to do better because they sucked, but as much as he tried he couldn't do better, he had no inspiration. It was probably somewhere in the pacific ocean he thought sadly.

-Her death had affected him more than he had ever thought it would. They hadn't been with each other in 6 years, he should have been able to move on but he couldn't and he couldn't write because sitting in front of his computer implied thinking and letting his mind wander and that was something that he just couldn't do, he was scared of where it would lead him.

-He had finally stopped dodging his mom and his friends' phone calls though. He hadn't told any of them about Peyton or Anna, and had made up excuses as to why he couldn't go down there to visit them, but at least he was talking to them.

-It was mainly due to the fact that he was now an expert in concealing what he was feeling, his voice gave away nothing, hence the reason to stop ignoring them. They couldn't harass him if they didn't know that something was wrong in the first place, and his voice wasn't giving him away anymore, so he was good to go.

-He kept the flow of information to a minimum. Everything was fine, he was just very busy. Nothing was new.

-He hadn't told Anna about them and she hadn't asked. He figured when they were both ready he would tell her all about them and make formal introductions but for now it was all about the two of them getting to know each other and getting comfortable in their new life and his friends and family, even with the best intentions, would only make things harder for both of them. It was better to wait.

-The summer had came and went in a blur and now on day 78 he was about to take Anna to her first day of kindergarten. She was less than please at the idea and the uniform wasn't helping any. Anna had been complaining about it for weeks. She didn't like anything about it and had made that crystal clear to Lucas.

-He had even considered enrolling her into a different school for a while, but he figured it was the best school in the area, she could at least try it there, if she really didn't like the school itself, and not only the uniform, then he would consider switching schools, not before.

-He chuckled when he walked into her room and found her glaring at her reflection in the mirror.

-Hearing him she turned around and sent him a major league death glare.

-"It's not funny daddy." She admonished.

-"Of course not." He agreed with a smirk. She could be such a drama queen sometimes it was hilarious.

-"Why do I have to wear this?" She asked pulling on her skirt.

-"We had this conversation already Ann, it's school policy. Now could you please come and eat your breakfast please."

-Seeing that she really wasn't going to get her way, Anna nodded and flew past him and out of the room toward the kitchen.

-Lucas sighed and grab her schoolbag before joining her in the kitchen for breakfast.

-Anna practically ignored him all the way through breakfast and in the cab ride to school, but he could see from the way she was fidgeting that it was about more than the uniform, she looked scared.

-When they got out of the cab at her school, Lucas bent down to her level and placed her hands on her shoulders.

-"It'll be fine Anna, you're going to have fun and I'll be there with you all morning I promise."

-"But I don't want to go." She sobbed as she threw herself at him.

-Lucas kissed her forehead. "It's okay to be scared, new things they're always scary at first, but you can't let the fear stop you because if you do then you'll miss on so much fun stuff. You don't want that right?"

-She shook her head no slowly as she rubbed the tears off with her sleeve. "But what if I don't like it?" She asked still looking scared.

-"Try it, if you don't like it after a few days, then we'll see but I want you to try, really try okay?" He knew that it was wrong for him to tell her that, no matter whether she liked it or not, she had to go to school but he figured if he was lucky she'd go in and have fun and the topic would never be brought up again, and if he wasn't, well he could always figure it out then.

-She considered it for a few seconds before giving him a small "okay".

-"Great. So ready to go in?" He asked her, standing up and offering her his hand.

-She nodded, took his hand and the two of them made their way into the school.

-Walking in the hallways in direction of Anna's class, Lucas was glad to see that other parents too had to deal with pre-school jitters and that reassured him. They finally found the right room and walked inside to find that the room was filled with about 12 kids and their nervous parents.

-A few minutes after Lucas and Anna had arrived, the teacher walked in and went to the front of the room to introduced herself. She then moved on to talk about what they were going to do and how much they were going to learn and have fun. Lucas smiled as he watched Anna and saw that she looked interested, maybe he wouldn't need a worst case scenario.

-The rest of the morning was spent with the teacher helping the kids get to know each other through games and activities and the parents speaking between themselves. By the time the parents were invited to leave a little after noon, Anna seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. It had probably a lot to do with the fact that they were doing a lot of artsy stuff and that even though she was a little shy, she had already made friends. Lucas was so proud of her, she had to be the most courageous kid ever.

-They were some tears when he told her that he was going to leave and come back to pick her up later that afternoon, but that he had expected. Anna was still terrified at the idea of being abandoned again and it was the first time that he was leaving her since they had met. It took some pretty hard convincing on his part but finally Anna had stopped crying and released her death grip on his neck, but only after he had promised her that he would come back to pick her up as soon as school was done. He promised and kissed her goodbye before exiting the school with the other parents, himself a little teary.


	11. Chapter 11

-A little over 2 months into the school year and Anna loved school, she still hated the uniform but her love for her school and her new friends compensated her hatred of the uniform and she never asked to change school again.

-At first Lucas had found spending his days alone in his apartment to be excruciating. He had spent so much time concentrating all his energy on Anna and her well being to forget about his pain that to suddenly find himself alone with his thoughts was almost unbearable. He kept thinking about her and about what could have been and he spent his days trying to occupy himself so that he wouldn't have to think anymore, not that that happened, but he kept trying.

-Eventually, after weeks of despair, he had finally been able to write something that didn't suck but it wasn't a novel, he couldn't bring himself to write one of those, it was a children's book.

-Anna was asking him to read her a story each night and she got bored of the books he got her, so eventually she asked him to invent them. That's how he got the idea. He took a collection of stories that he had told Anna and had rearranged them into a book. His agent and his publisher had been thrilled at the idea. Probably because unlike all the other stuff he had submitted them lately, those stories didn't suck.

-They had now decided to publish his book and Lucas was thrilled about it and so was Anna. She had beamed with pride when he had told her and had spent the last few weeks telling everybody she knew that her nighttimes stories were going to be in a book.

-Explaining to his family and friends why his next project was a children's book had proved difficult though. He still wasn't ready to open up about Anna or Peyton's death so he had had to make up a story about how he was trying to broaden his horizon and what not. Luckily, they had accepted his explanation without too much convincing.

-He knew that he was being a coward. He should have told them about everything months ago, but he kept putting it off. Anna had been with him for over 4 months now. She was talking, eating, had made friends at school. She was still having some nightmares, but they were less frequent. She still had those moment when she cried the loss of her mother, but he figured she would probably always have those. But in general, psychologically, there was nothing stopping him from having her meet his family.

-The psychological and emotional resistance to the idea were all his he knew that. He still couldn't. He knew that they were going to ask how he had ended up with a 5 year old daughter and he didn't think that he would be able to bring himself to say it, to gave them an answer.

-He hadn't accepted her death, he knew that too. That was the main reason why he couldn't bring himself to say out loud that she was gone. As long as he didn't say it he could hope that it wasn't real, that it was just some horrible nightmare, but the moment he said it, it would become real and that terrified him. He couldn't think about it, he couldn't talk about it and most importantly he didn't want to. So he just continued making up excuses not to go down there even though he was pretty sure that they had realised now that he was making them up and just didn't want to go. He didn't really care, as long as they didn't know why he was making up excuses, it was fine by him.

-He had changed, he wasn't denying it. He knew he was being selfish hurting his family and friends to protect himself and Anna, but he didn't care. That was the thing that had changed the most in him. He didn't think about everybody else first anymore. Anna was all that mattered. Keeping her happy and safe was what he lived for, the rest, as cold as it was to say it, seemed pointless to him.

-The time he spent with Anna, he relished even more now that she was in school. He didn't see her as much anymore, so every moment that they did spend together was precious to him. Week nights would be pretty calm. Most of the time they would talk about her day while watching tv or drawing, well she drew, he watched. Weekends were spent doing anything Anna wanted to do. They went to the park, or shopping, or he arranged play dates with her friends. Anna was adapting really fast and he was so proud of her for that.

-The school had only called him to come down to the school to pick her up once. It had been an unfortunate accident. During some game that they were playing, some kid had asked her if she had a mom seeing as he had only seen Lucas pick her up and Anna had broken down in tears. The teacher not knowing what was going on or how to calm her down had him called, so that he could come and pick her up.

-He had been terrified all the way to the school, worried that she had been hurt and his heart had sank when he had seen her crawled up in a corner crying as everybody else watched on.

-He had rushed to her and taken her into his arms as the teacher apologized and expressed her confusion on the reason of her outburst. It had taken all he had to tell the teacher that the reason Anna had started to cry was because her mother had died a few months back.

-Her expression had gone from surprised to compassionate to pity as she looked at Anna who was still sobbing in Lucas' arms. He hated it, hated the pity. Anna shouldn't have to have people look at her like that. She was a kid, her life should have been happy and carefree, not filled with pain, it wasn't fair.

-As he had told Anna that he was going to bring her back home for the rest of the day. The teacher had told him that she was going to make sure that the subject wasn't brought up to Anna again and Lucas had been grateful. She had told the truth, nothing of the type had happened since and he was relieved.

-Lucas was very involved in Anna's school life. He went to every school related event and made sure to always know what was going on at school. He wanted to make sure that Anna received the best education she could and that she was happy at her school, which luckily she was. She had even started dance lessons that were offered at the school once a week with a couple of her friends and she was getting pretty good, but more importantly, she was being a kid.

-Lucas' children book was coming up in December, since Lucas had refused to do any promotion work until Anna was on Christmas break from school and could come along. His publisher had been less than pleased but Lucas hadn't budged, Anna came first and leaving her here while he did promotion across the country was out of the question, so his publisher had finally folded and accepted a later publishing date, early December.

-November arrived sooner than he had expected and soon enough Thanksgiving was approaching. He was dreading it, both for him and for Anna, who as she too knew it was coming had become gloomier.

-It was her first holiday without her mom, it was bound to be a hard one. Lucas, himself dreaded the holiday but for other reasons as well. Mainly because he had still to figure out how to tell his mom that he wasn't going to go to Tree Hill to celebrate with them this year.

-He knew she wouldn't take it well, but he thought it was best for everybody, well Anna and him anyway. He intended on making the holiday as pain free as possible for Anna and for himself and his whole plan was based on a simple holiday dinner with only the two of them, going to Tree Hill would be the complete opposite of that.

-Sadly for him, he didn't even have time to form a plan on how to tell his mother before everything went south.

-A few days before Thanksgiving, his phone rang right after he had put Anna to bed and he had answered to find his mother on the other end.

-"Hello."

-"Lucas, it's mom." "_Oh crap!" _

-"Hi mom." "_Okay how do I get out of this?"_ "Look mom I'm sorry but I really can't talk right now can we do this later?"

-"Oh no we can't. You've been avoiding talking about Thanksgiving for weeks. I want to know when you're coming in." "_Okay what now?"_

-"Hum mom I don't know, I'm really busy with the book coming out in 2 weeks. I don't think I'm going to have the time." "_That was good, maybe this is going to work."_

-"I'm not buying it Luke. You always make time for Thanksgiving, what's going on?" "_Or not! How I'm I going to get out of this now?"_

-"Nothing mom I'm just more busy than usual this year that's all."

-The line was silence for a few seconds when Lucas thought that maybe she was going to let it go but then she spoke again and everything went to hell.

-"Okay fine, you're busy. You won't have to do anything, we'll all just go over there. I'm going to cook, you're going to be able to work and still see your family. It's a win-win." "_No it's not, it's the worst thing that could happen."_

-"No!" "_A little more panicked than I had intended." _"Mom you don't have to do this, I'll catch up next year it's fine."

-Another silence on the other end then "No. We're coming and that's that. See you in three days honey."

-"No!" _Definitively panicked._

-"Luke!"_ Stern_

-"You can't mom, don't bring everybody here please." _Pleading_

-"Lucas!" _Now it's incomprehension and hurt, "great job man!"_

-"Look mom I'm sorry okay, but you just can't come here, it's not a good time."

-"Luke, are you in trouble? Is this why you've been avoiding us?" _Silence, and then more silence, I just don't know what to say._

-"We're definitively coming. I'll see you in a few days. Bye Luke"

-"Fine okay, I'll tell you what's going on but come alone, before Thanksgiving."

-"How about tomorrow, I could come with Lilly, she's been dying to see you."

-"No! I'm sorry mom I miss her too but it would be best if it were just you, at least for now."

-"What's going on Luke?" _"There's no way out of this anymore."_

-"I'll tell you everything tomorrow I promise."

-"I'll be there at ten." _The line goes dead. "She's not happy with me"._

-He sighed and hangs up too, he needs to talk to Anna.


	12. Chapter 12

-The next morning, as soon as Anna woke up a little after seven Lucas was waiting for her in the living room. He had barely slept the night before, not that it was unusual for him anyway, he's used to it now, but last night unlike other nights was spent trying to think about what he was going to say to his mom about Anna.

-He opened his arms for her and she willingly went to him and sat on his lap.

-"How did you sleep?" He asked her.

-"Normal." Short, unelaborated answer, that means one thing, she had a nightmare.

-"Sorry Ann!" She hugs him tighter, she knows that he knows and it's reassuring to her.

-"I have something to talk to you about." He starts nervously and she picks up on it because she looks up at him worryingly.

-"Nothing's wrong, don't worry. It's just my mom's coming to visit today, so you're going to meet her. How do you feel about that?"

-She thought about it for a few seconds. "Is she going to like me?" She asked quietly.

-"You're her granddaughter, of course she's going to like you. She might be a little surprise at first, but she'll love you." He kissed her nose as she was once again deep in thought.

-"I have a grandma?"

-"Yup, and you know what, she's going to love you." He said tickling her and making her laugh as he carried her into the kitchen.

-"So, are you okay with you're grandma coming to visit?" He asked a few minutes afterward as Anna is eating her cereals and he's drinking coffee.

-She nods timidly.

-"Good. You'll see it's going to be fine." He said as much to reassure himself as to reassure her.

-Anna is dressed and playing in her room when the doorbell rings at 10 on the dot. Lucas had made sure to look irreproachable when he got ready. He wanted to avoid her prying into his feelings as much as possible and looking like he was fine was one step in that direction. Not that he really believed it was going to work anyway, his mom would see how bad he was really feeling the moment she laid eyes on him it was unavoidable, but he could give it a try anyway, just in case it actually worked.

-He moved in to open the door with a feeling of doom at the bottom of his stomach. "Here we go!" He thought as he turned the handle.

-His mom scanned him up and down a few times before she spoke.

"You look horrible." She moved to hug him and Lucas reciprocated the hug.

-"Thanks mom." Sarcastic

-"What happened Luke?" She asked concerned evident in her voice.

-"Come on in, I'll tell you everything." He said with a fake assured tone.

-As she looks around his apartment, he knows she must have noticed the toys and drawings that are scattered around but if she finds it suspicious she doesn't say anything.

-They sit on the couch and she finally brings up what's bringing her here in the first place.

-"Why have you been avoiding us Luke, what's wrong?"

-He stands up.

-"Luke, you said…"

-"Just follow me." He says as he starts walking in the direction of Anna's room. His mom follows him without a word. He figured why tell her when he could very well show her.

-He opens the door and walks in followed by a very shocked Karen. If he hadn't been so nervous about what he was about to do, he might have actually laughed at the expression on her face. It was the last thing that she had expected to see, he knows it.

-"Mom, Anna. Anna this is you're grandma Karen." He makes the introduction in the steadiest voice he has and watches as his mom's eyes go from him to Anna over and over again before settling back on him.

-"I'll explain everything." He mouth as Anna timidly makes her way toward them. When she reaches them, she hides behind Lucas' legs. He turns back to face her. "It's okay Ann you don't have to be scared."

-Karen who has finally found her ability to speak after the shock jumps in. "Very glad to meet you Anna." She says extending her hand to the little girl.

-Anna keeps an eye on her and one on Lucas as she slowly shakes her hand before running back to play with her toys.

-Lucas looks from his mom to Anna and then speak.

-"We'll be in the kitchen." He tells Anna knowing that she probably needs her space to warm up to the idea of Karen's presence.

-She nods and Lucas guides Karen out of the room closing the door behind him. He knows her eyes are on him as they make their way to the kitchen but he is determined to take every seconds he has. He doesn't open his mouth until they are both seated in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

-"Why is there a little girl living in your apartment Luke and who is the mother?" His mom asks, no longer able to wait for her son to explain what the hell is going on here.

-"Did you look at her? I think the answer to the second question is pretty evident."

-She thinks about it for a few seconds and then it comes to her. "Peyton."

-He can only nod.

-"Is she yours?" He had expected this one, he already has an answer all prepared up.

-"Not genetically no, but she's my daughter." He says with all the strength he has.

-"What, Peyton just dropped by for a visit, left you her daughter and then left herself is that why she's staying here." His mom ask with more reproach in her tone than Lucas can take.

-Suddenly, the words that have been hanging in his throat for what seeems like forever are out of his mouth.

-"She's dead." He had finally said it, it was barely above a whisper but he had said it and his mother had heard him loud and clear.

-"What?" Shock laced through her voice.

-"You heard me." He can't say it again, if he does he's going to break down.

-"Luke, I…" He interrupts her. He know what she's about to say and he doesn't want to hear it. Doesn't want to hear her tell him how sorry she is, he doesn't care.

-"Don't." The tears in his eyes are warning enough. She doesn't move an inch until she sees that he has recomposed himself.

-"When? How?" Tears are starting to fall from her own eyes now, she loved that girl. Peyton had always been kind of like a daughter to her.

-"About 5 1/2 months ago. 162 days. In a plane crash." He can't form full sentences right now, it's above his strength.

-Realization dawns on his mother's face as she remembers the news coverage about the crash. She reaches for Lucas' hand but he pulls it back not wanting her comfort. She does the only thing that she can think of right now, she asks the last question her brain can come up with.

-"And Anna?"

-Lucas looks up at her for the first time since telling her the news and the pain is even more evident in his eyes now that it was when he had opened the door. Her son his broken.

-"I didn't even know she existed until the woman from social services told me that Peyton had died and that I was Anna's legal guardian. I flew to L.A. and I brought her back." Again he keeps to fact, nothing more nothing less, that's the only thing keeping him together.

-"Luke, you should have…" Tears are streaming down her face has she can only imagine the pain her son has been in for the last 5 months, a pain that he refused to share with anybody.

-"I couldn't mom, I still can't. And Anna, she needed to adjust, she didn't need a bunch of people breathing down her neck." He's harsh, he knows it but he can't help it, it was the truth. If they had known, they would have wanted to help and they would only have made everything worst.

-"Luke…" She stops then starts again. "How are you, both of you?"

-"We're fine." Short, distant, his trademark answer for anybody who isn't Anna.

-"Luke!" She knows he's lying.

-"We're dealing mom." She's knows he's not dealing, he's doing the opposite of dealing but she doesn't bring it up, it wouldn't help at the moment.

-"So the reason why you've been avoiding us…"

-"Neither of us could have handled it."

-She ponders that for a few minutes before speaking again. "But now?"

-"What now?" He's utterly confused.

-"Now what are you going to do?" She elaborates.

-"Nothing."

-"Luke."

-"The only reason I'm telling you about her mom is so we won't be ambushed on Thanksgiving, that's all."

-"But now that I know, why not come down to Tree Hill to celebrate with us. You could both probably use…"

-"We're not celebrating it and we're certainly not going to Tree Hill and please don't tell anybody, please, not yet." He's pleading and her heart aches.

-"Lucas, it's Thanksgiving you can't just…"

-"WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSE TO GIVE THANKS FOR MOM? PEYTON'S DEAD, SHE'S DEAD AND SHE'S NOT COMING BACK."

-Karen visibly cringed at the outburst. Her son had never been one to yell, he was always controlled, but now, he had gone from normal to furious, faster than she had ever thought possible and now angry tears were streaming down his eyes.

-He angrily rubbed them off with his sleeve as Karen was more than surprised to find Anna coming into the kitchen and wordlessly climbing on Lucas who held onto her for dear life.

-She watched as the two of them simply held each other for a long time, obviously it was something that they were used to doing because both of them seemed completely comfortable in the embrace.

-Anna was the first one to speak, a few minutes later when Lucas pulled back a little to look at her, but the words that came out of her mouth were the last ones that Karen had expected.

-"I'm hungry daddy can I have a snack?" She asked Lucas tears still on her face.

-Karen had expected to hear her ask about his outburts, ask if he was okay, anything of this nature, but the little girl was talking about food, obviously pretending that nothing had happened.

-Karen watched as he smiled down at her and for the first time since Karen had come into the apartment, it was a real smile, small but real.

-"Sure thing Ann." He stood up with Anna still in his arms and he went to the fridge, took out an apple and handed it to the little girl who took it eagerly before looking back at Karen for the first time since she had came into the kitchen.

-"You want one too Grandma?"


	13. Chapter 13

-A little over four hours later Karen was on her way back to Tree Hill. After Lucas' outburst, Karen had decided to table the conversation about Peyton for another time seeing as obviously Lucas was in no shape to deal with it at the time. Anna though was adorable, after she had offered her an apple, Karen had accepted and had spoken with Anna as the girl sat at the table to eat her snack.

-The warning in her son's eyes had been glacial when she had started conversation with the little girl, she had better not mention Peyton. She had learned that Anna was 5 years old, loved purple and was taking dance lessons. After the initial shyness, she had been pretty open with her, giving her a tour of her room and then the three of them had went to the park.

-It was at the park that Karen really saw the changes in her son. While Anna was around, he was almost the old Lucas, he was smiling, laughing, joking with her, he looked happy, but the moment it was only the two of them, he closed off faster than she could have imagined. Answering her question about his life in one word answers, avoiding eye-contact, he was back to the new Lucas, the broken Lucas that she had first seen when she had walked into the apartment. It was like night and day, only Anna's presence could bring a real smile to his face, she was truly sorry for her son, he looked exhausted, his eyes had lost the spark that they used to have, and he had lost way too much weight for her liking.

-When she brought up the issue, ask how he was really doing, he brushed her off saying that he was fine and then stood up to go check on Anna who was playing on the swings.

-After lunch, Lucas had politely but very directly indicated that it be better she go. She had tried to argue, saying that she could stay as long as he needed to, but again he had brushed her off saying that he was fine, and that she should get back to Lilly. He had wished her a good Thanksgiving and promised to keep in touch, and after a goodbye to Anna, she had been on her way.

-She had accepted to let Lucas do as he pleased for Thanksgiving, after all she could understand how much holidays could be painful when you just had just lost someone and if Lucas didn't want to celebrate with them that was okay.

-She decided though that she was going to keep a close eye on him in the following weeks, he really didn't look too good and she was worried about him.

-She also thought about Peyton and about her unfortunate passing and that brought tears to her eyes. She had always loved Peyton, there was just something about the girl that made her worry about her. She couldn't believe that she was gone. Then her thoughts went to Anna. She felt so sad for the little girl who was going to grow up without a mom like Peyton had done before her. She couldn't help but notice the pain in the blonde little girl's eyes. Even when she smiled or laughed there was always this pain in her eyes and that truly pained Karen.

-She had wanted to help, do anything to help her son and new granddaughter through this, but she didn't know what. Obviously Lucas didn't want her help, but he certainly did need it. She wished he would open up to her, tell her what went on inside him, anything, but she knew that it was highly unlikely to happen.

-For the next few days as she prepared for Thanksgiving, she couldn't help but feel depressed. Somehow knowing about Peyton's passing and Lucas and Anna's pain, she wasn't really in the mood to celebrate anymore. She wished that she could be with them through this, but she knew that Lucas would refuse.

-He was isolating himself from everybody that wasn't Anna, she knew it, she had seen him do it when she had been in New York. She had seen the walls that he had built around himself and that nobody could penetrate except the little girl who was his whole life now.

-Lucas' friends knew that she had went down to visit him and had asked questions about what was going on with him, but she hadn't been able to say anything. She hadn't promised Lucas that she wouldn't, but she didn't know if it was right for her to be the one announcing the news. It was probably something that Lucas had to do himself not that she saw that happening anytime soon. She had seen how much of him it had taken for him to tell her and she didn't think he would be up for that again anytime soon.

-On Thanksgiving as she was cooking with her family she couldn't help but feel bad for her son, but the subject wasn't brought up until after dinner.

-"So, how did it go with Luke?" Haley asked suddenly. She already kind of knew the answer, if it had gone well Lucas would have been here today yet he wasn't.

-She looked like a deer caught in the headlight and they all noticed it. "Huh fine." Karen finally managed.

-"So, what's wrong with him?" This time it was Nathan who asked.

-She painfully swallowed not wanting to do this now. "Look guys, I know you worry about him, but let's not do this today."

-"Something's very wrong isn't it?" Haley could see the expression on Karen's face and it wasn't saying anything good.

-"Haley, I don't think that I…" She started.

-"He's my best friend. If you won't tell me, I'll figure it out myself." She said determinedly. Karen basically had to begged Haley not to follow her to New York and she had agreed but now she really wanted to know. She was getting very worried.

-"No, don't." She took a deep breath. "I promised him that I was going to leave him alone till at least after the holiday."

-"What's wrong with him?" Haley's tone was firm, she wasn't giving up.

-"Haley, please you don't…" Karen tried anything not to have to do this but from Haley's expression she knew that she wasn't going to have a choice. The only way to protect her son from the onslaught of his friends barging in on him was to tell them herself.

-"I want to know."

-She took a deep breath, tears starting to fall from her eyes as she looked from Haley to Nathan, to Skills, Mouth, Rachel and then settled on Brooke. She knew that the news that she was going to announced them was going to hurt them, and there was nothing that she could do to avoid it.

-She sent the kids play in Lilly's room before she spoke.

-"He's not good, he's hurting, a lot." She said tears still brimming in her eyes.

-"What happened?" This time the question was hesitant as Haley started to dread the answer.

-"Something happened, something very bad. I wasn't suppose to tell you, but you want to know and…"

-At her babbling they all knew that it was something very bad. Karen always seemed in control. Now she looked sad, and nervous, it wasn't a good sign.

-"Karen, please."

-She swallowed. "Peyton died."

-The room fell dead silent as 6 pairs of eyes fell on her all at once. None of them wanting to believe what she had just told them. They all looked shell-shocked, then suddenly as they realised that she was telling the truth, tears started to roll down each of their faces.

-"How? When?" It was Brooke who had asked her voice barely steady as she cried.

-"You remember that plane crash 5 months ago, the one in California, Peyton was on that flight." It was hurting her to say it as much as it was hurting them to hear it.

-"No!" Brooke chocked on her tears, "It can't be, she can't be dead."

-"I'm sorry." It was all she could say.

"5 MONTHS." Brooke had exploded. "HE'S KNOWN FOR 5 MONTHS! HOW COULD HE?" She couldn't understand how Lucas could have decided not to tell them, to tell her. Peyton had been her best friend.

-"He's not doing well Brooke. He's hurting and he almost broke down telling me a few days ago. I can only imagine how bad it was 5 months ago."

-That seemed to calm her down and the next few minutes were a mix of sobs and reassuring words as the young adults cried the loss of their friend.

-Seeing them crying, she hesitated to talk about Anna. She didn't know if she should wait or tell them everything right now, but again this decision was made for her as Nathan who, as he was holding onto Haley while she cried, seemed to sense her dilemma.

-"There's more isn't there." He said his voice chocking with tears.

-Again she took a deep breath before speaking. "She had a daughter, a five year old little girl and she made Lucas her legal guardian, that's how he found out about the accident. Social Services dropped by to tell him the news before telling him about Anna."

-"Anna?" Again it was Brooke who had asked.

-"Yeah, she's beautiful. She looks so much like Peyton it's crazy."

-She waited as the news sank in. It was a lot at once and she knew it must be hard for them to accept all of it. They hadn't seen her in years and now they learnt that she had died and had left her daughter to Lucas, it was probably going to tale time for them to digest everything.

-"How were they, when you saw them?" Haley asked sometime later when she had calmed down enough to form coherent thoughts. She was hurting herself but she knew that it must have been way worst for Lucas.

-"Lucas says that Anna is doing better everyday. There's a sadness in her eyes though, and she's hurting it's very easy to see, but he says she's adapting very well."

-"And Luke?" They all knew that her avoiding the subject wasn't a good thing.

-"You'll probably see by yourself. He wouldn't tell me anything. Kept telling me that he was fine, but he looked tired, exhausted in fact. He looks, he looks broken. He's not my Lucas anymore. He was cold and distant and the spark that always was in his eyes, it's gone."

-"Karen…" Haley moved in to hug her as she saw the older woman break down crying.

-"He's hurting so much Haley, but he won't let me in. The only times I saw parts of his old self back was when he was with Anna. With her he was different but the second she wasn't around anymore he closed off completely. I just don't know what to do. I feel like I'm losing him, I can't lose him." She cried in Haley's arms


	14. Chapter 14

-Lucas and Anna's Thanksgiving was spent with very little celebration. Lucas made an effort to prepare food that he wouldn't prepare normally, but other than that it was very much a normal dinner.

-His mother's visit a few days before had taken more out of him than he had expected. He knew that he had hurt her when he had asked her to leave and told her that he hadn't changed his mind about Thanksgiving, but he felt that at least now she understood his reasons, that had to count for something, right?

-Anna had loved the time that she had spent with Karen and he was glad about that. Anna deserved to have someone like his mom in her life and as long as she would leave him be, he wanted Karen to be in Anna's life.

-Thanksgiving was hard. As Lucas had told, or instead yelled to his mother, he didn't really have anything to be thankful for this year. He loved Anna more than anything, but still the fact that he had gotten her from losing Peyton, kind of put a dent on his thankfulness for her presence. He was thankful for Anna still, she was the only thing keeping him from losing himself completely in his sorrow. He didn't know what would have happened to him the past 5 months if he hadn't had Anna with him. She was the reason why he got out of bed in the morning, the reason he did pretty much everything, she was his lifeline, and he was very grateful for that.

-During dinner that night, Anna had been particularly quiet but he had expected it, when she was hurting more than usual she was always more quiet, so he let her be. He told her that he loved her and that he was happy that she was there and that was all that was said between them until later than night when she was the one to start the conversation.

-He was in his office working on his computer when she had showed up in the doorway fidgeting with her fingers. Lucas looked up at her.

-"What's wrong Ann?" He asked concerned.

-She walked up to him and he pulled her up on his lap.

-"Want to talk about it?" He tried again.

-She nodded and then was silent for a few minutes before speaking again.

-"Do you think that mommy can see us?" She asked softly.

-Lucas sighed. "Yes sweetie I think she can."

-"Do you think she's proud of me?" Again very softly as her face is buried in his chest.

-He backs away a little so that he can look at her in the eyes. "I know she is." And he meant it.

-"I miss her daddy." She says as she once again buries her head in his chest, tears starting to fall from her beautiful green eyes.

-"I miss her too baby, I miss her too." He said emotionally as he kisses her head reassuringly.

-That's the last they spoke that night as Anna fell asleep on his lap and Lucas carried her to bed before once again setting himself up for another restless night.

-The next few days after the holiday are pretty busy as he starts to prepare for the launching of his book and Anna goes back to school. On the following Wednesday he's about to leave his apartment to go pick up Anna. He flungs the door open and almost has an heart attack when he finds Brooke, who's about to knock, on the other side.

-They two look at each other for a few seconds not saying anything. Brooke's eyes are puffy and she looks like she hasn't slept in days.

-He knows. She looks up at him and right away he knows, she knows.

-"How?" He asks.

-"You're mom." She's knows exactly what he's talking about.

-"Oh!" He's angry. He had asked her not to tell anything and now Brooke's here, he feels slightly betrayed too but he has more pressing concerns now. He's trying to figure out what she wants from him.

-"She told us that you didn't want us to show up here and the others listened, it's only me." Her voice is small, indecisive, so far from the Brooke he's known for years.

-"Oh!" Again he's at a loss for words.

-"I want to see her Luke." Now her voice is stronger, almost angry.

-"Who?" He knows who she's talking about, who else could she means, but he's buying time, he doesn't know if it's a good idea.

-"You know who, I want to see her." The way she looks at him when she says it, makes it clear that she's not going to go away.

-"Brooke, I…"

-"She was my best friend Luke. We lost touch and every thing but she was still my best friend. I want.." She recollects herself as tears are threatening to fall from her eyes. "I need to see her Luke."

-"Okay." He gets it. Anna's the only link she has left to her best friend. He can't deny her that, even if he wanted too, but the truth is, he doesn't.

-"Thanks." She's about to move past him into the apartment when Lucas stops her.

-"She's at school. I was about to go pick her up."

-"Oh." This time it's her who doesn't know what to say as she's embarrassed for not thinking that Anna could in school at that time.

-"Want to tag along?" The pain evident on her face at his announce that Anna wasn't home yet is the reason why he asks her.

-"Sure." And with that the two of them leave the building and get into a cab.

-The cab ride to the school was silent, neither of them in the mood for small talk. When they finally get there and exit the cab, Brooke cannot help but be impress.

-"Wow." He had to say he had had the same first impression when he had came to register Anna. The school was beautiful and very imposing.

-"I wanted her to have the best." He explains simply.

-Brooke nods her understanding as they start making their way toward the entrance.

-"Brooke just…"

-"Let you make the introductions, yeah I figured."

-"Thanks." He's happy that she gets it.

-They walk in and Lucas sign the registry writing his name and the time. It's school policy. Before any child walks off the building it must have been filled in. That way they can insure that each child leaves safely.

-Brooke stands back and watches as Lucas walks into a room filled with children, that she assumes must be Anna's class, and a little blonde girl jumps into his arms.

-Brooke holds her breath for a few seconds, Karen was right, she looks exactly like Peyton. She watches as Lucas makes his way toward her with Anna in his arms while the little girl babbles about something that Brooke can't make out.

-Anna doesn't really notice Brooke until she enters the cab with them. But once she did notice her, she doesn't take her eyes from her for all the ride back to their apartment.

-Brooke feels somewhat exposed under the little girl's scrutiny as Lucas too notices the way Anna keeps looking at Brooke.

-She doesn't say a word though, doesn't address Brooke in any way until they've reach their apartment building and walked into the apartment. Lucas offers Brooke coffee as he hands Anna her snack and the little girl sits at the table with them to eat it.

-Lucas finally makes the introductions.

-"Anna this is…" He doesn't get to finish.

-"I know." Two sets of eyes flash to the little girl who has just spoken in a quiet voice.

-"You know what Ann?" Lucas asks, unsure of what she's talking about.

-"I know who she is." She explains not taking her eyes away from Brooke who's frozen on her chair, unable to move an inch.

-She must have seen the complete shock on both adult's faces because she spoke again.

-"You're Brooke, my mommy she told me about you." The little girl says more assured this time.

-Brooke gasps as tears start falling from her eyes. Peyton had told Anna about her, that meant so much that she couldn't even express in words how much.

-Lucas was speechless, Anna had recognized Brooke. He didn't know how he felt about that.

-"What did she say?" Brooke finally managed to ask once her tears had rescinded.

-Lucas' head snap back to her and he sends her a glare. Brooke's going into uncharted territory and he's worried that she's going to upset Anna, but apparently she doesn't upset her that much because Anna answers her relatively quickly.

-"She said…" The little girl takes a deep breath and Brooke finally realised why Lucas had been glaring at her. It's hurting Anna to talk about Peyton.

-She's about to argue that she doesn't have to say anything when Anna continues speaking.

-"She said you were her bestest friend and that when I was older maybe you were going to be my friend too."

-The tears that she had just managed to control are flowing out of her eyes again. She felt like shit. She had been horrible to Peyton so many times and yet Peyton had still said those awesome things to her daughter about her, it wasn't fair. Peyton shouldn't have died, Anna shouldn't have lost her mother so young.

-Lucas could see that Anna was confused as she watched Brooke cry, so he stood up and took her into his arms.

-"Why is she crying daddy?" The little girl didn't know what she had done wrong.

-"She just misses your mommy Ann, just like we do."

-Anna nods understandably before speaking again.

-"Does it mean that she doesn't want to me my friend?" She asked a little worried.

-Brooke's head shot up off her hands in which she had been crying.

-"Of course not kiddo, you and I are going to be great friends I promise." She was going to make this right, she thought determinably. She was going to be to Anna what she had failed to be to Peyton.

-"Really?" Anna asked hopefully.

-Brooke stood up and walked close to the pair. "Really." She said smiling to the blonde little girl.

-"What do bestest friends do Brooke?" She asks confused on what the difference was with her other friends.

-"Anything you want, if it's okay with your daddy though."

-All of a sudden Lucas has both girls looking up at him expectantly.

-"How about you two start by playing in your room, then we'll see." He's giving Brooke a chance, she better not screw it up. Brooke gets the message and mouths a thank you to Lucas.

-Anna smiles at Brooke and then extends her little hand to her while still in the protective hold of Lucas' arms.

-"Friends?" She asked.

-"The bestest." Brooke smiles shaking the little girl's hand.


	15. Chapter 15

-After that day, Brooke had started to come by to play with Anna regularly and the two of them had taken to each other in record time. Each time she was in New York she would show up and spend a few hours with Anna. Lucas figured that in some way Brooke was trying to make up for the way she had treated Peyton during their friendship by being there for Anna but he had nothing against it.

-Brooke was great with Anna, she would play with her for hours and Lucas figured that Anna could only benefit from some feminine presence in her life, beside she was already in love with Brooke. When she knew that Brooke was to be visiting she was ecstatic for hours before and for hours after. Lucas knew that it had probably a lot to do with Brooke never showing up empty handed and he had commented on it to Brooke a few times earning himself a few eye-rolls followed by comments about how rude it was to show up empty handed. Brooke was good to Anna though and that was all that mattered.

-He was also very grateful that Brooke never tried to pry information out of him on how he was feeling or anything. She was there for Anna that was all. Sure they would interact and have friendly conversations, but Brooke never brought it up and he appreciated it. He didn't know if she was doing it for her or for himself but he didn't care. As long as she left him alone about it, her reasons were irrelevant.

-He was pretty sure that Brooke hadn't mentioned her regular visits to Anna to anybody in Tree Hill because even though his mom still called regularly to check on him and Anna, she never mentioned it and continued to respect his wish not to come to his apartment to ambush him into talking to her. She must have gotten the message to Haley and Nathan and all of his friends to whom she had told the news because although he felt like they called more regularly and kept asking how he was doing, they never once mentioned Peyton.

-His promotion work for his book had started last week and after a few days on the West coast, him and Anna were getting back to New York for the rest of the holiday. He still wasn't thrill about planes and being in California had been hard, but it was for his work, he hadn't been able to get out of it and in the end, it had went better than he had expected. People and critics alike were enjoying his book, well most of them anyway, and things were going relatively well.

-He was thrown out of his thoughts by the doorbell and laughed as Anna flew past him in the direction of the door.

-"Slow down there sugar. You know the rule, you don't open the door by yourself."

-"But Daddy!" She wined already at the door while he purposely made his way to her as slowly as he could, therefore receiving a glare from her.

-Brooke was coming to pick up Anna for the day. Lucas had promotional work to do all day and was worried that Anna would get bored so Brooke had suggested that she take Anna for the day and Lucas had accepted. Truth was he was a little nervous, it was the first time he was going to trust Anna with someone other than her teacher and he was worried about what could happen.

-Not that he didn't trust Brooke, he did. He was just worried.

-He opened the door and Anna flew into Brooke's open arms.

-"Took your good old time opening that door Scott." She joked as she kissed Anna's forehead.

-"How are you kiddo?" She asked looking Anna over. She hadn't seen the little girl in a few days, not since before they had left for California.

-"I missed you." Anna told her.

-"I missed you too kiddo. So, I see that your daddy didn't take you to the beach. You're still as white as…"

-"Brooke!" Lucas warned.

-"I wasn't going to say anything bad dad." She joked. "But seriously, you need to take the girl to the beach, she needs some colour." She said pinching Anna's cheek, making the little girl giggle.

-"I wasn't there on vacation Brooke, beside she could have gotten sunburned."

-Brooke rolled her eyes at his over protectiveness which made Anna giggle again.

-"Okay so before you two start making fun of me again, I'm going to go." He said grabbing his coat from the hanger.

-"What are you guys going to do today anyway?" He asked while getting dressed.

-"I was thinking shopping if it's okay with the little missy." She looked down at Anna. "So, what do you think?"

-Anna didn't formulate an actual answer she just squeezed the life out of Brooke with the hug that she gave her.

-"If that wasn't clear enough of an answer to you, I think she's on board. That girl loves shopping." Lucas laughed at Anna who still hadn't released Brooke from the chokehold that she had on her neck.

-"Who doesn't" Brooke answered in all seriousness. This time Lucas was the one to do the eye-roll.

-"Bye Ann!" Lucas said kissing the back of her head since she was still in Brooke's arms.

-She swung around and Lucas took her into his arms.

-"You'll be good to Brooke alright?"

-"Promise." She said with a huge smile. She really did love shopping.

-"And if you could pick up a few ideas on what to ask Santa for Christmas, that would be great."

-"Okay."

-"Don't worry, I'm on it." Brooke said giving him a military salute.

-He laughed. "Don't go overboard Brooke. She still needs some ideas for Santa."

-He knew of Brooke's habit of impulsive shopping and he didn't want her to leave him with nothing left to give to Anna for Christmas.

-"Me? Overboard? Never." She said pretending to be insulted.

-"Have a nice day. I love you." He told Anna ignoring Brooke's sarcastic comments.

-"I love you too daddy." Anna answered giving him a big kiss on the cheek.

-"Very cute. Now come on mister time to go, me and the little missy here have some very important shopping to do and we can't get to that if you keep being mushy."

-Lucas laughed, transferring Anna into Brooke's arms. "Bye Brooke." He said kissing Anna one last time before following Anna and Brooke out the door and out of the building, as he went to his book signing and they left for the mall.

* * *

-As Christmas came closer, Lucas was getting some mixed signals from Anna. He could see that as much as she loved Christmas it was still a very hard time for her. It was her first Christmas without Peyton and Lucas wasn't sure how he was suppose to handle it. He didn't know if it would be better to just have a small Christmas celebration just the two of them or if he should take Anna to Tree Hill like his mom had been begging him to for weeks.

-Karen had only spoken to Anna on the phone since she had seen her before Thanksgiving and was dying to see her again. She had also voiced how much everybody else in Tree Hill was anxious to see the little girl but still Lucas didn't know. The last thing he wanted was to make things harder for Anna.

-Brooke's opinion when he had ask her about it had been that Anna was strong enough to handle Christmas in Tree Hill and that everybody was going to do everything they could to help make that the best Christmas possible for her, but he was still hesitating. There was a lot that Brooke didn't know about his reasons for hesitating.

-A week before Christmas, as he still hadn't made his decision his mom showed up at his apartment a little after dinner.

-"Mom! What are you doing here?" He asked surprised.

-"What I don't get a hug?" She says in a fake hurt tone as Lucas moves in to hug her.

-"Come on in." He leads her inside.

-"So, where's my favourite granddaughter?" She asks looking around for signs of Anna's presence.

-"Here!" They hear the little girl screamed as she bounced from her room dressed in her pyjamas.

-Anna ran to them and stopped right in front of Karen for a second unsure on what her next move should be.

-Karen resolved her problem for her, bending down to the little girl's level.

-"Can I get a hug?" She asks with a smile that Anna returns as she hugs her.

-Half an hour later a very disappointed Anna is sent to bed and the two adults are left on their own for the part Lucas dreads, the one-on-one conversation.

-"She looks good, happy." Lucas appreciates her not commenting on him.

-"It comes and goes. Some days are better than others." He explains with an even tone that he has perfected to an art in the last few months.

-"Luke about Christmas…"

-"I haven't made up my mind mom." He interrupts her knowing what she's about to ask. It's not really a surprise, his mom had been bringing up the subject almost each time they spoke.

-"But Luke it's in less than a week."

-"I know mom, I know okay. But like I just told you some days are better than others. How am I suppose to know if bringing her to Tree Hill is going to help or simply make things worst."

-"Luke, she's going to be fine. What do you fear will happen anyway?" She asked confused about his reticence.

-"If she gets upset or sad, she's going to want to be left alone. Now I don't see that happening in Tree Hill." He says exasperated.

-"Nothing's going to upset her Luke. She's going to be fine."

-"I don't think so." He said in a sad voice, not looking at her.

-"Luke…" She notices that he's getting up. "What…"

-"I'll be right back." He says before leaving the room and coming back two minutes later with a sheet of paper in his hand.

-"That's the reason I'm worried." He says handing her the sheet of paper.

-"What is this?" She asks confused.

-"Anna's letter to Santa. Read the first thing on the list." He said in the same even tone he has used since the beginning of the conversation, but his eyes are absent and refuse to look at her.

-Karen opens the letter and read the first line of the letter's which is in Lucas's handwriting.

-"Oh"

-"Yeah." Lucas sombrely confirms.

-They both look back at the letter.

-_For Christmas, what I want the most is to have my mommy back so that we can be a real family._


	16. Chapter 16

-A week later, Lucas and Anna were in his car on their way to Tree Hill. Karen, after showing great concern for Anna over the Santa letter, had argued that for them to stay in New York wouldn't make the whole situation easier for Anna and had suggested that maybe to be surrounded by her new family would keep her mind away from things. Lucas hadn't been convinced but had eventually conceded but not before making his mom understand that if Anna wanted to leave, they were going to leave. Karen had approved so here they were, on December 24th, in the car on their way to his hometown.

-They could have flown in, but with the possibility that Anna could get upset and want to leave, Lucas hadn't wanted to get stranded because of bad weather or booked flight so he had instead opted to take his car.

-They were celebrating at Brooke's house still this year seeing as it was the biggest house and that they could all stay overnight. They had just stopped in her driveway when Lucas opened the door to his sleeping daughter.

-"Anna." He gently shook her. "We're here."

-She slowly opened her beautiful eyes and Lucas got worried instantly. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea. Anna was visibly upset and he doubted she was in the mood for celebration.

-"Hey sleepyhead." He tried, caressing her cheeks as she became more alert.

-"Hi Daddy." She said in a quiet voice.

-"Want to go in and see Grandma and everybody?" He asked in a calm voice. Seeing her upset always got to him and brought back the feelings that he kept fighting so hard to repress, his own pain.

-After a few seconds, where Lucas considered what he was going to do if she said no, she finally nodded timidly.

-"Good. Let's go try to have fun okay." He said helping her out of her seat and taking her by the hand along with their bags, leaving her presents in the trunk so that he could come back later to pick them up and put them under the tree before she woke the next morning.

-He took a deep breath, dreading seeing everybody again now that they knew about Peyton, before he finally knocked.

-His mom's the one to answer the door, probably expecting it to be them. They were the only ones who had more then a five minutes drive to get there who else could it be. Lucas doesn't take the time to consider the irony that out of all his friends, him and Peyton were the only one to really leave Tree Hill, it would hurt too much and after all it was Christmas. There would be time for self-pity later, there always was.

-He hugs his mom and then watches as she bends down to hug Anna who responds in kind. He knows from the way she looks at him afterward that she has noticed that Anna is upset but she doesn't say anything about it.

-"Come on in." She says and then leads them inside and to the room that Brooke had assigned to them. At first they had wanted to put Anna with Lilly and James, but Lucas had refused saying that he'd rather have Anna with him.

-She showed them to their room and watched as Lucas dropped their bags to the floor.

-"I'll let you guys change, meet us downstairs when you're ready?" She asks.

-"Sure." Lucas agreed and his mom walked out closing the door behind her.

-He leaves the room for 5 minutes to go get dressed and when he walks out of the bathroom Anna is standing in front of the mirror in her pretty dress and tears are streaming down he cheeks.

-His heart constricts as he rushes to her and takes her into his arms. He walks them to the bed and sits down as Anna buries her head in his neck and resumes crying. He knew this had been a bad idea, they shouldn't be here. He blames himself as he holds her.

-He doesn't know how long they just sit like that, her crying, him trying with all he has not to, but the next thing he knows the door opens in his mom peeks in.

-"Luke, are you…" She sees them, "Oh!"

-She doesn't ask if they're okay, or what's wrong. She knows too well how Lucas reacts to those questions, so she just gives him a compassionate look.

-"We'll be waiting downstairs when you're ready." She says quietly.

-"Thanks." He barely utters, too busy concentrating on Anna who has yet to calm down.

-Karen walks back to the living room where everyone is enjoying themselves and she can't help but feel bad for Anna and Luke. She wishes that things could be different, that her son could be really happy again, but knows it doesn't look good. She saw Lucas' expression when he looked up at her, he was regretting having come in the first place and she couldn't help but wonder if they were going to see the two blondes at all that evening.

-She looks at her son's friends as she walks back into the room. They are so much more than that now, they've all become a big family and she can see that all of them are still mourning deeply the loss of their friend as they are celebrating, Nathan, Haley and Brooke being the more affected as the pain can sometimes be easily seen in their features.

-They all look up when they notice her standing there. They knew she had went up to see if Lucas and Anna were ready and are wondering what took so long.

-"How… What's wrong?" From the older woman's expression Haley knew something happened.

-"Anna's upset and Lucas' trying to calm her down." She explains unable to hide the sadness from her voice.

-"Oh!" They almost all say at the same time. Karen notices Brooke looking worryingly in the direction of the stairs but doesn't say anything as the younger woman doesn't move and keeps looking in the same direction.

-"Poor kid." It's Skills who has spoken what they are all thinking. It's unfair for a so young little girl to be feeling so much pain on Christmas.

-Upstairs, it's been sometime since his mom's visit when Anna finally stops crying.

-Lucas kisses her forehead, brushing off her tears with his thumbs.

-"You want to go back home?" He asks worryingly.

-"I'm okay." She decides after a few seconds. She's being so courageous, Lucas couldn't be more proud of her.

-"You sure?" He's still not convinced.

-She nods. "Huh huh, I want to see grandma and Brooke." She says her tone more convinced this time.

-"If that's what you want?" Lucas finally concedes. "But at any time if you feel sad again and want to leave, just tell me okay?"

-"Okay daddy." She answers looking down at herself as Lucas finally stands up Anna still in his arms.

-"Do you think I look pretty?" She asks unsure as Lucas is about to open the door.

-"Beautiful." He answers without a second's hesitation and that seems enough for her because she flashes him a smile and gives him a big hug as they make their way downstairs to face the music.

-The conversation which had barely started again after the awkwardness of Karen's revelation dies all at once when Lucas and Anna make their entrance.

-Lucas visibly tenses as all their eyes fix on him and the little blonde girl he's carrying in his arms. He knows exactly what they're thinking as they look at her. They're thinking about her mother and how much they look alike and the idea makes Lucas uncomfortable.

-He looks around the room and notices that everyone is there except Brooke who for some reason is out of the room at the moment. "Great, for once that she could actually be helpful, she's nowhere to be seen." He thinks as he realized that Anna must have sensed the attention on her because she tensed too. That or his tensing made her tense, he's not so sure right now.

-He protectively keeps Anna in his arms as he ponders how he's suppose to do this whole introduction thing.

-Karen's the first to move. She takes a few steps forward with his little sister closely behind. She gently puts her hand on Anna's shoulder who slowly turns around and gives her a small smile when she realises that it's her grandma.

-"You look beautiful sweetie." Karen comments

-"Thank you." She says simply.

-Lucas pats his sister's head and she doesn't appreciate the gesture, smirking at him.

-"Ann this is my little sister Lilly. Lilly this is Anna."

-Anna watches from Lucas to Lilly and then back to Lucas before giving a shy "Hi" to Lilly who responded in kind.

-Lucas was about to continue with the introductions when a voice boomed from the hallway coming in.

-"Hey people why is it so quiet in hereeeeee?" Brooke stops dead in her track when she realises the reason why everybody was so calm.

-Anna who had recognized the voice instantly looks like she just came to life as they all watch her struggle for Lucas to put her down.

-Lucas laughed and then carefully puts the little girl down and they all stare in shock as Anna darts toward Brooke who willingly opens her arms for her.

-"Come over here kiddo." Brooke laugh as she watch the little girl run toward her.

-"Brookeeeeee." The little girl yelp and then jumps into her open arms as jaws drop all around the room at the revelation that Anna knows exactly who Brooke is and vice-versa.

-"How was the drive little missy?" Brooke asks feeling very well the attention that she is getting from her friends.

-"Very long." Anna sigh dramatically.

-"She got that from you by the way." Lucas piped in, smiling as he got closer to the two girls. Since she had met Brooke, Anna had started to take onto the older woman's dramatical expressions and used them profusely.

-Brooke rolls her eyes and then smirks at him. "And I'm so very proud." At that, Anna giggles and pokes her shoulder.

-"What's up kiddo?" She asks with a smile.

-Anna leans in and speaks in her ear before pulling back and looking expectantly at her.

-"Of course I got it. Who do you think I am?" She jokes and once again a smile lights up Anna's face.

-"What are you two scheming now?" Lucas asks a little worried at what they're planning.

-"Nothing." They both answer at the same time which makes Lucas more nervous.

-"Brooke." He warns.

-"Don't worry DAD, it's nothing bad." Brooke joked at Lucas doing everything she could to avoid the others' gaze knowing that they were probably waiting for an explanation on what the hell was going on.


	17. Chapter 17

-A few minutes later, as Anna is back in Lucas' arms to finish the introductions, Brooke can't help but feel the angry looks her friends are shooting her as often as they can without attracting the little girl and Lucas' suspicion.

-Somehow Brooke's presence has put Anna in a good mood and as Lucas introduces her to Skills, Mouth, and Rachel, they all receive an "Hello" and a smile from the blonde girl.

-He then moves to Nathan, standing with James and Haley, who is shooting death glares in Brooke's direction while the other girl pretends not to notice. Now he knows for sure, Brooke definitively hadn't told anybody about her weekly visits to his daughter.

-"Anna, this is my brother Nathan. He's your uncle. And this." He points to Haley and James, "Are your aunt Haley and your cousin James." He finishes with a smile.

-She looks between him and Nathan a few times and then

-"I have an uncle and a aunt and cousins. Like people on tv do?" She asks surprised.

-"Yup you do." Lucas confirms, the smile never leaving his face.

-"Really?"

-"Really." It's Nathan who has spoken and she looks up at him, shooting him her trademark Sawyer smile as Lucas as come to refer to it.

-"Hi uncle Nathan and aunt Haley and cousin James." She says making an effort to remember the names correctly.

-Nathan positively beams as he looks at her. The little girl is so adorable, and she looks so much like her mother. He knows that this is exactly what Haley is thinking about as tears start rolling down her eyes.

-Lucas bites his lower lips as he watches Haley, knowing exactly what she is thinking and wishing that he didn't. Finally Haley gets control over her emotions and the tears stop.

-"Hi Anna. It's very nice to meet you." She then says to the little girl.

-A few minutes later. Lucas and Karen are with the kids in the living room when Brooke is cornered in the kitchen by her friends.

-She almost has an heart attack when she turns around and finds Haley inches from her, her arms crossed over her chest, the others not too far behind her with similar expressions on their faces.

-"What the hell is going on Brooke?" Haley asks angrily.

-"Nothing." She tries to denies it but it to no use.

-"We had all agreed Brooke. We promised Karen we were going to stay away from Lucas until he came around." Nathan continues.

-"And I did."

-"Yeah and that little girl knows you from where then, box of cereals." Rachel smirks.

-"Could be, I'm getting famous you know." She tries to joke. Anything to get herself out of there.

-"Brooke." Nathan warns and she finally caves.

-"I've been leaving Lucas alone, just like Karen asked okay. I went there for Anna."

-"What?" They all spoke at the same time.

-"I needed to okay. I couldn't just stay here and pretend that I didn't know that she existed. I needed to see her to be able to deal with… so I went." She starts to explains, tears in her eyes. Talking about Peyton's death always made her cry, she just missed her so much which was weird considering that she hadn't seen the blonde in years. It was inexplicable, somehow knowing that she was never going to see her again made everything worst.

-"Brooke." Haley tries to apologize but Brooke is on a roll, she started and now she needs to finish.

-"I showed up there one afternoon, a few days after Thanksgiving and Lucas agreed to let me see her. She…" She fights off the tears before continuing. "She knew who I was already, Peyton had told her about me, showed her pictures I guess." Again she pauses to control the tears.

-"After finding out about that, I couldn't stay away. I needed, I needed to make things right so I started to spend time with her, we became friends. Each time I go to New York I drop by to see her for a few hours."

-"And Luke?" Haley questions. This time her tone quieter, more understanding.

-"Nothing. He's not the reason why I go, and he knows that. That's the main reason why he doesn't mind me coming around. I play with Anna and I leave him alone. We barely talk. All the conversations we have, Anna's there with us, or they're about her. There's no risk I'm going to risk pissing him off, I don't want to loose her too." She says referring to Peyton. She had already lost the mother, she was going to be damn if she was going to do anything that was going to lead to losing the daughter as well.

-Nathan was about to speak again after having digested what Brooke had just told them when Anna shyly walked into the room.

-They all froze wondering if she has heard anything, but relax when they realize that she has a smile on her face and does not seem upset at all, just a little shy.

-She smiles shyly to every one of them before stopping in front of Brooke.

-"Brooke?"

-"Yeah little missy?" Brooke says wiping the remnant of tears from her cheeks and smiling to the little girl.

-"Lilly and James, they say I don't play right." She starts.

-Nathan and Haley look at each other worryingly, hoping that their son hasn't upset their new niece. But they immediately calm down when Brooke speaks again.

-"And what game are you guys playing?" Brooke asks, curious about why Anna is coming to her when both Lucas and Karen were in the room with them.

-"Candyland."

-"Huh, and what did your daddy say?" Brooke asks smiling. Now having a good guess why Anna was sent to her.

-"He said to tell you." She stopped for a few seconds, pondering it. "He said to 'tell Brooke: your mess, you clean it up.''

-Brooke rolls her eyes and then smiles. "Come on, let's go show them how we play Candyland in Brookeland."

-The others watch and laugh as Brooke takes the little girl's hand and leads her back to the living room, Anna talking animatedly as they walk.

-The following hours are enjoyable for everybody. Everybody is getting to know Anna and she's adapting fast to the new environment.

-Her and Lilly and James are almost inseparable now. The older children having taken her under their wings. She's also a lot less timid with the other adults, and answers the questions they are asking her. Lucas never being too far away from her, keeping an eye on her to make sure that nothings upsets her, but so far so good.

-Lucas is having a harder time though. He keeps feeling the stares on him and he knows that his friends are only worried about him, but it's getting old. He feels like there are always at least one of them with an eye on him, and it's making him nervous.

-None of them has brought up the subject yet and he's grateful for that, but he needs some air. He needs to not feel their eyes on him for a few minutes so he approaches Anna, who is playing with Lilly, James and Brooke and he sits beside her.

-She turns to look at him right away.

-"I'll be outside for a few minutes. Come find me if you need anything okay."

-She looks at him concerned for a few seconds.

-"Are you okay daddy?" She asks sweetly, a concerned look on her beautiful face.

-"Yeah baby I'm fine, just needs some air. I'll be right back." He reassures her. He loves that she worries about him, but the girl deserves to have some fun and he won't keep her from that.

-"Brooke?" He asks as he is getting up.

-He trusts his friends, really, but somehow he just feels better knowing that Brooke will keep an eye on her, she knows Anna better.

-"I've got her." She knows what he's asking and she's happy that he trusts her with that. If there is one thing that she knows it's how much the girl means to Lucas. Her and Lucas, they're friends, not great ones, but friends nonetheless, and for him to trust her with Anna means the world. She's not about to let him, or her, down.

-"Thanks." He says before kissing Anna's forehead and walking toward the door, throwing an 'I'm fine' look at Karen as he does.

-He's outside taking some air and just cleaning his head when suddenly he feels them again, the stares. He spins around to find himself cornered by his mom and his best friends, well except Brooke who he guesses must be inside with the others and the kids seeing as they aren't there either.

-Suddenly, he has this urge to run back inside, every desire to clear his head gone from his mind.

-He looks at all of them and he has this feeling that he's not going to like what they are about to do, not at all.


	18. Chapter 18

-He feels trapped as they are clearly blocking his way inside.

-"I was just about to go back inside, it's pretty cold. Have fun you guys." He tries to brush them off, but again it's no use, they're still blocking his way.

-"We want to talk Luke." His mom says calmly.

-"I have to go check on Anna." He makes up an excuse.

-"She's fine. Brooke's with her."

-"What's this an intervention?" He accuses, suddenly feeling angry at them cornering him outside on Christmas Eve.

-"If this is what you need this to be than yes."

-"I don't need anything, now move." He threatens but neither of them are moving out of his way. They were obviously expecting that.

-"Luke." Haley pleads with her best friends.

-"I'm fine."

-"No you're not. You're the farthest thing from fine."

-"You don't know what you're talking about." He argues.

-"Oh yes I do. I know you better than anyone don't you remember."

-"No you don't! She did." He starts his voice angry, but the last part is barely above a whisper.

-"But I still know you well enough. And in the couple hours I've seen you tonight, I've learn everything I needed to know."

-"And what would that be Hales? I'm fine, I'm dealing that's all."

-"No you're not Luke. You're doing the opposite of dealing, you're hiding. We just want to help Luke, we miss her too you know. You can talk to us."

-"There's nothing to say. She was alive, now she's not. That's it."

-"Don't do that Luke. Don't pretend that you don't feel anything, that you're not hurting, because we all know that you are. It's written clear across your eyes, all the time."

-"Fine, I'm hurting. Is that what you wanted to hear, I'm hurting. Now can I get back inside?" He asks with a hard tone, as tears starts to flow from his eyes and he angrily pushes them away.

-"We only want the old Luke back, Lucas." His mom steps in for Haley.

-"I'm right in front of you. Can we get back inside now, please." Now he's the one that's pleading. He doesn't want to do this.

-"No you're not Luke. You've changed. You look tired all the time, you're moody, you've lost weight. You barely speak to us anymore."

-"Maybe it's because you guys are annoying." He barbs.

-"And that too. The old Lucas would never say things like that. You're cold and distant, you're uncommunicative, and you almost never smile anymore. The only times where you look even remotely alive is when you're with Anna. The rest of the time you look almost dead."

-"Maybe it's because I am."

-"Don't say that Luke."

-"What do you want me to say then. I thought that this was what you guys wanted to hear."

-"We just want you to tell us the truth Luke. We want you to let us in so that we can help you through this. Please."

-"I don't need your help. I'm doing fine on my own."

-"No you're not. You look like a ghost Luke, can't you feel that? Don't you want to get your old self back?"

-"No." He answers simply, truly meaning it.

-"Luke." Karen pleads with him. She tries to touch his arm in a comforting gesture but he jerks it away.

-"You guys don't understand anything. That's why I can't talk to you." He yells angrily.

-"I understand Luke. I've lost someone too, don't you remember?"

-"Of course I remember. But it's not the same thing."

-"How is it different? I lost someone, you lost someone. The pain's the same Luke. If you let me in, I could help."

-"No it's not." He shouts. Tears now flowing freely from his eyes.

-"You had Keith all your life mom. All your life he was right in front of you waiting for you to realise how great of a guy he was. You only had a small period of time with him, only because of your own doing mom. You could have had him for the last 20 years if you had wanted to, but you realised it too late and then he died, it's not the same with her." He cries.

-"And how is it different with Peyton, Luke?" Karen speaks through her own tears.

-It hurts for Lucas to say all those things to her about Keith but he's opening up and she's not about to let it go because he's breaking her heart in the process.

-They all notice Lucas cringe at the mention of Peyton's name and realises that not once has he referred to her by her name, he only said 'her', or 'she', never 'Peyton'.

-"You wouldn't understand." He tries again to avoid the issue.

-"Try me."

-"You had Keith by your side all your life mom. The only obstacles in between you guys were the ones you made mom. He was there and he wanted you, all you had to do was see it and you guys could have been happy and spend the rest of your lives together, Her and I, it wasn't like that."

-"How was it Luke?"

-"We thought we had time. That's why we broke up to chase our own stupid dreams." He spits bitterly. "We were always suppose to find our way back to each other when that was done, but I was robbed. I was robbed mom. I'm never going to get the chance to find my way back to her again, to lived what I've dreamed of since I was twelve. It's never going to happen now." And suddenly the anger's back.

-"Come on now. Look me in the face and tell me you understand. Come on do it." He screams at them through his tears.

-"That's right. You can't because you don't. All of you lucky bastards got a shot at the happily ever after. I'm never going to get that. So you want to know what? In a way, I am kind of dead. I'm nothing. I live for Anna that's all. Other than that I've got nothing to look forward to. So you're right mom, when she's not around I am dead."

-With that he pushes through them, not caring about possibly hurting them, all he wants is to get away from here, from them, and they are too shocked from his outburst to try to stop him this time.

-"Oh and by the way Happy fucking Christmas." He yells at them before slamming the door behind him.

-Immediately, Karen crumbles to the floor and Nathan and Haley jump in to help her stand up, Haley hugging her for comfort as the three of them all cried for Lucas and his pain.

-Inside, nobody heard nothing of the commotion outside until they heard Lucas scream "Happy Fucking Christmas" and then the door slammed.

-That was the moment when Brooke realised that things had really went wrong outside. Not that she had thought it was going to go well. This was the main reason why when she had seen them all get up to follow Lucas she had decided to stay put and keep playing with the kids. She had too much to loose from Lucas being pissed at her and frankly she could understand why he didn't want to talk about his feelings. He always had been a brooder, he dealt with things on his own. Brooke doubted that he would like to be ambushed on Christmas Eve and apparently she had been right.

-They heard him run up the stairs and then an upstairs door slamming and Brooke turned worryingly to Anna, to see if the little girl was okay. Obviously she wasn't. She had tears in her eyes as she got up and started to run to the stairs, trying to follow him. Brooke ran off after her, thinking it was probably not a good idea.

-She grabbed Anna by the shoulders and tried to take her into her arms but she was fighting. Anna was kicking and punching to prevent Brooke from stopping her before she reached her dad, but Brooke fought through and finally grabbed a hold of the crying little girl.

-She tried to hug her to her body, but the girl started screaming.

-"LET ME GO. LET ME GO BROOKE. I WANT TO SEE MY DADDY. I…WANT…TO…SEE…MY… DADDY." She repeated over and over as sobs prevented her from getting the whole sentence out all at once.

-"Shshshsh." Brooke tried to calm her down but there was nothing to do, the girl kept kicking and screaming until a voice stopped her.

-"I've got her." The voice was teary and quiet but Anna stopped screaming instantly. She spun around still sobbing and extended her arms to Lucas who sent Brooke an apologetic look before taking Anna from her.

-"I've got you. I've got you." He kept repeating over and over again as Anna sobbed into his neck while he made his way back upstairs and closed the door to their room behind him.

-He felt guilty, he had been so angry at them that when he had stormed in he had completely forgotten about Anna and what effect it could have on her. He had only crashed down to reality when he had heard her screaming. He had rushed downstairs as fast as he had been able to.

-"What the hell happened?" Brooke asked angrily as she saw the other three walk back inside looking upset.

-"Not now Brooke." Was Nathan cold answer as they all sat back down in the living room.

-"You know he's probably packing right? Do you have any idea when we'll see them next if he leaves this house right now? Because I do, it's probably going to be never and sorry but I'm not going to let that happen." Brooke said heatedly before storming off in the direction of the stairs.


	19. Chapter 19

-Lucas was doing exactly what she had expected him to be doing when she walked into the room. He had a still crying Anna in one arm and was packing their bags with the other.

-"What do you think you're doing?" She asked calmly not wanting to upset Anna more than she already was.

-"What do you think I'm doing? This was a mistake Brooke."

-"No it wasn't. You can't leave now. She was having such a great time, don't deny her that. I know it's not what you want Luke."

-"I can't stay Brooke. I'm sorry, but I just can't."

-"What did they say to make you so angry Luke?" She tried.

-"Nothing."

-"They pushed didn't they. They pushed too hard and you exploded. Is that what happened?" She asks and just by his expression she knows that she hit right on.

-"It probably doesn't mean anything right now, but I'm sure they were only trying to help."

-"I don't want their help."

-"Luke."

-"You certainly wouldn't be saying this if it were you that they had trapped outside on Christmas Eve. How'd you feel if they had blatantly tried to force you into talking about the guilt you feel about you and her and how it ended. How would you feel Brooke?" His voice is quiet and hard but the point gets through.

-"I, I…" She can't answer him because truth is she doesn't know. Lucas was the first one to call her out on the guilt that she feels about the way she treated her friendship with Peyton now that she is dead. None of her other friends had realized that and she had to admit that if they had and did to her what she guesses they did to Lucas, she would probably be out the door in record time. But this isn't about her. It's about him and Anna.

-"Okay, I would probably be pissed off, but this isn't about me. This is about you and you have Anna to think about now too. She finally met her whole family Luke, she was having fun, and on top of that, it's Christmas. Stay for her, if nothing else."

-"Brooke." He warns.

-"You know it's what you need to do, I know that you know that."

-He thought it out for a few seconds before speaking again.

-"Fine, I'm not going to leave, but for tonight I'm done. If Anna wants to come down later, I'll send her down with you, but me I'm done. And if they keep pushing it tomorrow, we're out of here." He said motioning to him and Anna, his voice hard.

-"Thanks, I'll pass it along." She starts to leave but turns around.

-"You're doing the right thing you know?"

-"Yeah I know." He said in a quiet voice.

-She's almost out the door when.

-"She loved you you know, always has and always will." She said her voice barely above a whisper as tears make her voice shake.

-He looks up but she was already gone, the door closed behind her.

-Brooke made her way downstairs wiping the tears from her face. She walks into the living room to find everyone staring at her.

-"I fixed it. He's staying, but he made it clear that if you do that again he's out of here."

-"Brooke."

-"Why couldn't you guys just let it go, if only for this time at least. It's Christmas, I think he's probably going through enough already without needing you guys to make everything worst now." She blamed.

-"We were only trying to help Brooke." Haley argues.

-"Yeah? How'd that work out?" She ask sarcastically.

-"He's terrible Brooke, haven't you seen it?"

-"Of course I've seen it, you'd have to be blind to miss it."

-"We only wanted to help him. We thought that if we got him to open up then he could deal with it and then…"

-"And then what Haley? Move on? Forget that she's dead? Because that's what happened, Peyton's dead. She's dead and Lucas just lost his soul mate, so I suggest Haley that you think about how'd you feel if Nathan died before you make any judgment on how Lucas should live his life." She finished now openly sobbing. Haley tried to hug her but Brooke pushed her away.

-"This day just keeps getting better and better." She says sarcastically leaving the room and its occupant to think about what she'd just said.

-Lucas never sent Anna back down that night because minutes after Brooke had left the room the little girl had cried herself to sleep once again.

-He carefully changed her into her pyjamas before putting her down on the bed and tucking her in carefully.

-Once she was down, Lucas considered what should be his next move and then finally settled on the bed beside her and opened the television.

-When he was sure that Anna was down for the night and wouldn't wake up to find him gone he carefully made his way downstairs and outside. He made his way to his car and unloaded Anna's present from the trunk. Luckily he had already put them all in bags so he only had to make one trip. He walked back inside and sighed before entering into the living room where his friends were still celebrating.

-He set the bag down and started to unload the presents conscious of all their eyes on him but he refused to acknowledge them. Brooke got up and came to sit beside him, helping him out without saying a word until they were done.

-"How is she?" She asked quietly but loud enough for everybody else to hear.

-"Cried herself to sleep." He answers without looking at her.

-"Luke I'm sorry. I thought that…"

-"You were trying to protect her Brooke I get that. Beside it's not the first time it happens." He adds sadly. He knows they are all listening but he doesn't care.

-"I just never thought she would react like that. I thought I was torturing her." She says getting teary again remembering the event of earlier that night.

-"Don't beat yourself up. She just…" He stops looking behind his shoulder at the others, hesitating.

-"She what Luke?" Brooke insists.

-"She's still terrified of being abandoned. You know after what happened." He paused getting control of his emotions and then continues. "It's my fault, she probably thought that I was going to leave her here and panicked. It had nothing to do with you Brooke." He reassures. He doesn't know why but he doesn't want her to feel guilty about this, not when it's all his fault.

-He gets up followed shortly by Brooke.

-"Do you think she's going to be angry with me?" She asks softly. She's scared that she just ruined their relationship.

- He stops walking and turns to look at her. "Of course not. Tomorrow it's all going to be forgotten I'm sure. Don't worry, she loves you." He knows why Brooke is so scared, she doesn't want to loose Anna like she lost Peyton and he wants her to realise that he's not going to let it happen.

-"Luke." He turns around again. "Thanks."

-"Sure." He says giving her a small smile before making his way back upstairs completely ignoring the other occupants of the room.

-The next morning when he wakes up from one of his very few dreamless nights, Anna is already awake and watching tv beside him.

-"Good morning Ann." He says giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Merry Christmas."

-"Merry Christmas too daddy." She answers moving to cuddle to his side while continuing to watch her show.

-"How'd the tv get turned on?" He asked curiously.

-"Brooke turned it on when she came before." Anna says without looking at him, her attention focused on the show.

-He nods and figures that he was right, Brooke and Anna were still bestest friends. He smiled to himself.

-He lays there enjoying the moment until Anna turns to him abruptly the second her show is over.

"Daddy it's Christmas." She says it like she just realised it.

-"So?" He smiles at her.

-"There's presents." She answers already out of bed and halfway across the room.

-Suddenly she stops abruptly and turns back to him.

-"Santa knew we were here right?" She asks uncertain.

-"Of course." He gets up and takes her into his arms. "Let's go see what Santa got you."

-When they get downstairs everybody is already there waiting for them and eating breakfast.

-Upon seeing them, Lilly and James turned ecstatic.

-"Mom, mom, they're here can we open presents now?" The both ask enthusiastically looking at both Haley and Karen.

-"Sure, if it's okay with Lucas." Karen asks trying to make eye-contact with her son but he was avoiding it, keeping his eyes on Anna.

-"I don't see why not." Is his answer to the two little kids who looked up at him hopefully.

-"Yay." They both yelp and then they all start opening presents.

-As the kids opened presents, Lucas noticed that Anna kept looking toward the door with a sad expression on her face. Karen noticed it too and looked at Anna worryingly.

-When all the kids' presents have been open, and Anna realized that no more were coming she buried her face in Lucas' chest and started crying. They all watched concerned and oblivious as to what had happened. Lucas holding Anna who was crying quietly, with a sad expression on his face.

"Why didn't it work daddy?" She mumbles into his shirt. "It was suppose to work."

-"There's things that Santa just can't do Anna I'm sorry."

-"Then I don't like him anymore." She says angrily still crying into his shirt.

-Lucas doesn't say anything, just holds her as she cries some more.

-"What's going on?" Brooke asks Karen who too had a sad expression on her face as she watched the two.

-"She…" She pauses and everyone looks at her, well except Lucas who is busy with Anna.

-"Anna, in her Christmas list to Santa, she asked for him to bring Peyton back and now she just realised that he didn't." She finishes sadly.

-"Oh"

-They look back to the pair who are so completely absorb into each other that they do not realise that they are once again the focus of attention.

-About an hour later, as the adults are exchanging presents while the kids are playing on the floor in front of them, Anna looks up at Brooke.

-"Brooke?" She asks from her seat on her father's lap. She had calmed down, but her eyes still showed her deception over the fact that Santa hadn't brought her mother back.

-"Got it." Brooke answered getting up and reaching under the tree where only one present remained.

-Lucas had been polite all morning. He wasn't friendly, far from it, but he gave everybody the presents that he had bought for them and thanked them for those they had given him. Other than that, each time they tried making conversation with him he would answer in the shortest amount of words he could and then go back to focusing on Anna, It was excruciating for Karen, Nathan and Haley to see him be like that with them, but for now there was nothing that they could do, so they let it go.

-Brooke walked back to Lucas and Anna and handed the gift to Anna who then handed it to Lucas.

-"Merry Christmas Daddy." She said handing him the gift.

-"Oh!" Realization dawned on him as he saw the look Anna and Brooke exchanged. "This was what you guys were plotting."

-"Huh huh." Anna nodded happy that they had surprised him.

-"Open it daddy."

-"Sure." He kissed her temple before unwrapping the gift.

-He was completely amazed at what he saw. It was one of Anna's drawing, but it had been framed, which he guessed had been Brooke's doing. The drawing brought tears to his eyes. It was a picture of him and Anna playing in the park and what he knew was Peyton, dressed as an angel, watching them from the sky. Above were written the words _My family: Mommy, Daddy and Me. _And at the bottom it was written_ I love you daddy._

-Lucas couldn't stop the tears that filled his eyes.

-"It's beautiful Ann, I love it, thank you." He kissed her cheek and gave her a big hug, mouthing a 'thank you' to Brooke over Anna's head.


	20. Chapter 20

-After Christmas, Lucas and Anna left to return to New York and things went back to normal gradually. Lucas eventually forgave Karen, Nathan and Haley and they in turned promised to leave him to handle his grief on his own. Sure they kept checking on him regularly and he had probably scared them to death that night but they never once again tried to push him into opening up. Lucas in return started to make more of an effort when they were around to look more happy and joyful. He was pretty sure that they knew he was only faking but they never brought it up again.

-Brooke continued to visit regularly and her and Anna were still very close. Anna had also grown to love all of his friends as well as her cousins, the three of which became inseparable as soon as they were put into the same room. They would visit regularly and the two of them would also go down to Tree Hill as often as they could.

-Lucas' book was doing well and he was considering maybe writing a second one. He just couldn't see himself writing novels anymore, his inspiration for this type of literature gone.

-As the months passed they fell into a comfortable routine. Anna was doing great. She rarely cried herself to sleep and even though she still sometimes had nightmares, she started to have dream about Peyton that had her waking up in a good mood. She still had those moments when she missed her mom and would cry her loss and in those moments Lucas did his best to be there for her and comfort her, but all and all, Anna was almost as normal as could be.

-Lucas was still living for Anna. She was all that mattered to him. His family and friends tried to set him up on dates regularly but he simply refused to go. He wasn't looking to date. He had gained a little weight, mostly to appease his mom, but had still difficulty sleeping. Peyton was haunting his dreams and it was making it hard for him to enjoy his rest or to look forward to it.

-He knew he was the ghost of the man he used to be but he didn't care. He had meant what he had said to them that Christmas eve. His whole purpose had become Anna. He didn't care about himself, or what was best for him, all that mattered was Anna and what was best for her. As long as she was happy, he considered his life complete, he didn't need anything more, he didn't want anything more.

-Soon enough came May 11th, Anna's birthday. That day was a mix of happiness and tears. As he consoled her on missing her mother, he couldn't help but be happy that soon it would be the end of the first year and then things wouldn't be so new anymore. They would be done with 'the first since…", as Lucas referred to them.

-Everybody came to New York that day to celebrate the little girl that Lucas considered a gift. He regarded her as Peyton's gift to him. He was certain that somehow it had been her plan all long, that somehow she had known how much her death would crush him and had sent Anna to him so that she could save him from himself, give him a reason to keep on going. He was immensely thankful for that, Anna's arrival in his life had been a blessing, kept him out of a life in complete darkness.

-Anna's birthday had also marked the first time that Anna and Lucas had talked about Peyton.

-That night as he was putting her to bed like he did every night she had just asked out of the blue.

-"So Ann, happy to finally be six year old." He asked her.

-"Ann?" He had asked again when she hadn't answered him right away.

-"When am I going to meet my prince?" She asked him curiously.

-Lucas was baffled, he had no idea what she was talking about.

-"What?"

-"Like in the fairytales. Mommy, she said you were her prince and I want to know when I'm going to meet mine."

-"Not before you're forty." He had joked earning himself an eye-roll and a 'DADDY!!'.

-He thought about it for a few seconds. She had really caught him off guards.

-"You're mommy really said I was her prince." Somehow to him it sounded very un-Peyton.

-"Huh huh." The little girl nodded. "She said that you had came in on your white horse and saved her from the evil witch inside her, and that after that you had fallen in love and that one day you were going to finally have your happily ever after."

-Lucas nodded slowly. Somehow he had never thought of their history as being a fairytale but he had to admit that it kind of fitted the profile, well except for the happily ever after, that had been washed down the drain 11 months ago. He wiped tears from his eyes focusing back on Anna.

-"Was mommy your one and only daddy?" The little girl asked curious.

-"Yeah baby she was. No one can ever replace your mommy in my heart."

-"But what's going to happen now? You won't ever have your happily ever after?"

-"I hope that some day in a very very long time when I see your mommy again in heaven that I can finally get it then." He answered sadly.

-"What about me? Will I have to wait this long for my prince?" She brought it up again.

-"Longer." She sends him a look. "He'll have to get through me first."

-"But daddy." She wined.

-"If the boy can't beat me one-on-one, he's not going to take the princess anywhere."

-"What's one-on-one daddy?" She asked curious.

-"A mission." He answered very seriously.

-"Like the prince has to do to rescue the princess?"

-"Exactly."

-"But daddy what if nobody wins?"

-"Then I'm going to keep you with me forever, hahahaha." He joked tickling her and sending her into a fits of giggles.

-A month later though as he finally thought that everything was going to get better after they had gotten through the first anniversary of Peyton's death, everything changed.

-It was a little after two weeks after, June 8th, the date that would always be remembered in his mind as the worst day ever, and Lucas was in his apartment working on his second children's book when the doorbell rang.

-He got up, wondering who it could be seeing as he wasn't expecting anyone, and went to the door.

-What he saw on the other side was someone he never expected to see again. Tall, blonde, curly hair, endless legs, deep green eyes.

-His head starting spinning, his pulse was racing.

-"Pey- peyt- peyton." He finally uttered just before everything went black.

-End

* * *

**A.N.: Hey don't kill me, I'm already working on a sequel, so it should be posted soon. Thanks for all the great reviews and yeah I just couldn't help myself, I couldn't keep her dead. If anybody wants to give me suggestions for the sequel that would be greatly appreciated.**


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